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The Volcano Tour (Cont.)

Day 3>>Stevenson-Timberline Lodge, Oregon
The day begins with a jog west on Washington 14 to Beacon Rock, the second-highest freestanding rock in the world. The 848-foot-high plug of volcanic basalt was noted with awe in the journals of Lewis and Clark. In 1918, a gentleman from Philadelphia, Henry J. Biddle, finished a 4,500-foot trail with sections of cast-iron railing up its sheer cliffs. We climb it, dizzy and laughing at its 53 switchbacks.

We cross into Oregon on the Bridge of the Gods—a name without hyperbole. I-84 takes us east to Hood River to savor muffins at Bette's Place and to the port where we watch windsurfers whip in the pellucid late afternoon. We follow the clear light up the valley to the pearly year-round snowfields of Mount Hood and Timberline Lodge, where FDR slept and Stanley Kubrick filmed some outdoor scenes in The Shining.

Day 4>>Timberline Lodge-Bend
The kids want to try summer skiing on the Mount Hood glaciers but settle for building a snowman beside the parking lot. Then it's into the car and southeast on U.S. 26, crossing the watershed dividing the rainforest from the high desert. Douglas fir gives way to ponderosa pine. The air turns hot, and toothy peaks—Mount Jefferson, Three Sisters, and Mount Bachelor—loom on the otherwise open horizon. We shoot south on U.S. 97 along the tumbling Deschutes River, filled with blue-ribbon trout. At Smith Rock State Park, which draws rock climbers the way Hood River attracts windsurfers, we stop for a picnic lunch and then hike the canyon with its rock walls made of compressed volcanic ash.

By 6 p.m. we're watching the ducks on Mirror Pond (it reflects Mount Bachelor) in downtown Bend. After dinner at the redoubtable Deschutes Brewery, with its friendly atmosphere, hearty fare like barbecue ribs, and splendid Black Butte Porter ale, we retire to the River House Resort, where you can fish behind your room and listen to the gurgling Deschutes all night.

Day 5>>Bend
We're up early for a raft trip over the Big Eddy rapids. The popular family excursion includes a stretch of the Deschutes River five miles southwest of Bend, flowing through black lava fields in the Lava Lands National Monument. A third of a mile of continuous Class III rapids crowns the trip. Building the suspense, and modeling responsible rivercraft, our guide has us beach in a wide eddy and walk up the bank to scout our route through the rocks. Mary and Tom are enthralled; their mother is nervous.

We crash through the rapids, gasping at snowmelt flooding over the bow and paddling ecstatically. When we reach the calm water at the end, Mary leaps in for a swim and is quickly joined by Tom. After a moment, Patricia and I are in the river too.

Late afternoon brings a jaunt west on the Cascade Lakes Highway to the Mount Bachelor ski resort. We ride the lift to the 9,065-foot summit for a staggering view of peaks soaring above lava-gouged lakes. We can take in the entire length of Oregon from Mount Shasta in northern California to Mount Hood, which shadows Portland, our hometown. From this mountaintop, home seems close enough to touch.

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