A letter from a local
Three hundred days of sun. I counted.
The thing nobody tells you about Bend: the dirt is fast, dry, and five minutes from your driveway. Phil's Trailhead is basically a second downtown — by October you'll recognize half the parking lot. While the rest of Oregon sits under a blanket of drizzle, the high desert just keeps handing you bluebird days.
Bachelor is 25 minutes up Century Drive with empty mid-week groomers, and in summer the same road takes you to alpine lakes you can swim across before dinner. Smith Rock — yes, that Smith Rock — is half an hour the other way when you want to climb golden tuff until your forearms quit. In August people commute home down the Deschutes on inner tubes. Through downtown. I'm not exaggerating.
It's also the easiest move you'll ever make professionally — there's a real tech and healthcare scene here now, the kind where your manager reschedules standup around a powder day because she's at Bachelor too.
Yes, it's grown. There's traffic on 97 and your favorite trail has more bikes on it. But you'll be one of them — sunburned in February, eating tacos out of a truck with your people. Come out.
— Marisa