Eric Flowers

The Badlands doesn't give up its mystique easily. On a recent field trip to survey the proposed Wilderness area east of Bend, my guide and I hiked more than an hour over dusty trails, winding through an ancient, but not necessarily, awe-inspiring juniper forest before we reached our destination - a massive lava rock formation that erupts from the sandy desert floor in jagged arches and columns.
This is Flatiron rock, one of several major geologic sites within the Badlands and one of the reasons that the Bureau of Land Management designated the Badlands as a Wilderness Study Area in 1980.
It's here that it becomes clear why - despite the presence of old jeep trails, the occasional tree stump and other tell tale signs of human impact - supporters say that the Badlands is deserving of the federal government's highest level of environmental protection.
Geologists describe Flatirons as an inflated lava feature, a product of a fissure in a lava tube that pushed molten rock to the surface of the Badlands shield volcano 80,000 years ago. It's a clue to the area's violent geologic history and the forces that shaped the surrounding region, including Bend. Today, it's an attraction for hikers who start at the trailhead about 15 miles east of Bend on Hwy. 20, and one of the reasons that Congress is looking to make Badlands only the second wilderness area east of the Cascades in Oregon.

Hatchet marks serve as historical reminders.The march of time has erased most of the Huntington Wagon Road. The shifting desert sand has long since filled in the wagon ruts. The few artifacts left behind by travelers on this early north-south route through Oregon are now encased behind museum glass at the Des Chutes Historical Center. But the land betrays a few signs of its former life.
 
The gnarled trunks of several junipers bear the scars of their function as road markers, hacked into by the hatchets of primitive road builders to mark the route for those that would follow. The hatchet marks, known as "blazes" are etched into several trees along the roughly mile-long stretch of Huntington Road, one of the few clues to the road’s role as a critical supply route during the last Indian uprising in Oregon and Northern California, The Modoc War.
Thanks to the work of local historians, the significance of this particular stretch is well documented; bullet shells, ox shoes and metal shirt buttons are just some of the Civil War-era items recovered from the site.

Bend's Westside is known for its mature ponderosa pines, quaint mill-era cottages, dirt alleys and boutique shops, and, depending on how a Bend hearings officer rules on a pending application, possibly mega churches. The Church of Latter Day Saints has already staked out its claim on the Westside with its sprawling and largely treeless worship complex on Newport Avenue and Mt. Washington Dr.
Now Westside Church is eyeing a major expansion of its buildings and grounds just a few blocks east of the LDS property.

The Old Mill area’s Mercato is one of several mixed-use projects that has ground to a halt amid the housing and credit crises. Stephen Trono had grand plans for his new project, The Mercato, when he unveiled it back in the heady housing-boom days of mid 2006.

Five buildings soaring as tall as 74 feet, with brick facades and top-of-the-line interiors. A bustling ground-floor mixture of restaurants, bistros, food shops and kitchen stores. Offices on the middle floors for lawyers and architects, engineers and designers. And, capping it all off, a series of top-drawer condos, complete with million-dollar pricetags and sweeping views of the mountains beyond and the Old Mill District below.

That's still the dream, Trono says.

But here in the muddy days of
2008, with the housing market in the tank and the banks running scared
from speculative real estate deals, Trono says his land - the former
site of the Brooks-Scanlon Mill's hulking red crane shed - is likely to
remain just what it is for another year: A flattened field of weedy
gravel, waiting for better days.