Snowshoeing is easy to do and doesn’t require any sort of lessons to be able to do it. All you need is a pair of snowshoes, maybe some poles and of course, snow. There are numerous snow parks near bend with marked trails you can snowshoe along, or you can stop in the woods outside of town and make your own trail. A couple of the most popular routes are snowshoeing up to the top of Tumalo Mountain or Vista Butte, where on a clear day you have excellent views of Mount Bachelor, Broken Top and the Sisters. Another popular route is to park at the end of Skyliner Drive and snowshoe the closed road out to Tumalo Falls. Both Swampy and Virginia Meissner snow parks have about 3.5 miles of dedicated snowshoe trails each. The Edison snow park also has 3.5 miles of snowshoe trails, but these trails are rated higher in difficulty since they wind up and over ancient lava flows which creates an undulating trail that sometimes navigates along rocky ridges. Edison Snow Park is also one of the few snow parks that allow dogs.
For the forest service's maps of the snow parks, click here.
Free snowshoe tours at Mt Bachelor, click here.
For our business listings of the snow sports shops in Bend, click here.