Stretching 27 miles between Bend and Sisters, the Brooks-Scanlon Logging Road traces the route of a once-vital timber corridor through the Deschutes National Forest. Built in the 1910s as a railroad logging line, it later transitioned into a gravel road as trucks replaced trains for hauling logs. The last rail shipment rolled out on December 23, 1956, closing a 40-year era of railroad logging. Along its length, the road hosted portable logging camps—entire communities mounted on rails and moved as forests were cut, leaving only scattered signs of their existence. Between miles 2 and 13, the route delivers one of the most dramatic head-on vistas of North Sister found in Central Oregon.

Once known as the Bull Springs Tree Farm, Skyline Forest is a 33,000-acre privately owned timber tract west of Bend and Sisters, once cherished by locals for its mountain/gravel biking, running, and hiking trails. Though never formally public, the land was open for decades and became a recreation hub with panoramic views of the Cascades. That access ended in 2021 when the property was closed, highlighting the uncertainty of its future. Beyond recreation, Skyline is an ecological linchpin: a key winter range for mule deer and elk, a migratory corridor, and a source of clean, cold water for the Deschutes River. Fires in 2010 and 2014 underscored its vulnerability to development and climate stress.

The Deschutes Land Trust and Central Oregon LandWatch are leading efforts to conserve Skyline Forest. You can support by donating, volunteering, joining the Save Skyline Forest campaign, or voicing your support in public forums—helping preserve this ‘backyard forest’ as both wildlife refuge and future recreation space.

Click on the map to the left to compare the In Plain View route with the boundaries of Skyline Forest.

The Two Bulls Fire (June 2024) stood out for its timing. Fuels were a month drier than normal for early June, offering one of the first clear warnings of Central Oregon’s lengthening fire season. The blaze swept through federal and private forest, threatening near by ranches and homes, exposing the risks of the wildland–urban interface. Burn severity was uneven: some ridges were stripped bare, while other areas retained green stands thanks to natural breaks and prior fuel treatments. In the aftermath, salvage logging was weighed for the most damaged tracts, and closures restricted access due to falling snags and unstable slopes. Click on map for expanded view.

South Sister, Middle Sister, and North Sister are three geologically young volcanoes that make up the backbone of the central Oregon mountain skyline. Ever notice how the Cascade volcanoes from Mount Baker in Washington all the way down to Mount Lassen in California generally fall in a straight line? Oceanic crust on the Juan de Fuca plate is being subducted under the North American plate, slowly sinking toward hotter temperatures where trapped water heats up and rises, melting rock along the way, eventually bursting through the crust to form a volcano. Connecting the dots of these volcanoes essentially outlines the edge of that sinking plate!

In this sector, if you look closely, you will see some of Central Oregon’s oldest juniper trees, many predating white settlement and reaching 200–400 years in age. Unlike younger stands, their age is revealed not by size but by character: deeply furrowed bark, twisted trunks, gnarled limbs, and draping mats of lichen. True old growth is uncommon—only 3–5% of juniper woodlands qualify. Their rarity reflects changes in the landscape: fire suppression and grazing have enabled dense younger stands to expand into areas where juniper once grew only sparingly. Learn more in this podcast.

Some call it a “Dam Fiasco.” In the early 1900s, a conman developer from Portland sold arid land to hundreds of settlers with a promise that it would be farmable and irrigated. Then he fled the area. The State of Oregon stepped in to assist, developing the irrigation district by constructing canals and two dams – the Bull Creek dam and the Tumalo Dam, which is the dam right here at mile 20.5 of this route. Unfortunately, an unskilled engineer failed to discover prior to construction that the reservoir floor was highly porous – a fact that became evident when whirlpools formed once the reservoir filled. Concrete gate houses for water flow regulation are still visible here today.

About 10 square miles around Tumalo are home to one-third of the world’s dwindling population of a rare and threatened plant: Peck’s milkvetch (Astragalus peckii). Named for famous Oregon botanist Morton Peck, Peck’s milkvetch is a nitrogen fixer – a plant that can convert nitrogen in the air to usable nitrogen in the soil, which helps feed other plants. The population of Peck’s milkvetch found in Bull Flat here at mile 22.3 has been extensively studied and is most endangered by offroad motorized vehicle use. [Central Oregon Landwatch]