Oregon Badlands Wilderness - Ancient Juniper Trail

My success on last week's hike inspired me to go out on a hike today. I got a new app on my phone called MapMyHike. It tracks your speed, miles, and elevation. I wanted to do something with some elevation to test it out, but it's winter, and the mountains are still a bit snowy. We settled for the Oregon Badlands Wilderness and did the Ancient Juniper Trail. We found the trail in Overall, Bend. It's part of hike 7 in the book.

The hike is easily located at mile marker 16 on Hwy 20 east of Bend, Oregon. You have to be paying attention though because there are no warning signs letting you know the trailhead is coming. The sign isn't really that big either. There is a small parking lot at the trailhead. The Badlands have several different trailheads, but this one was called the Flat Iron Rock Trailhead. The trailhead has a map of the area and a list of things that you can do in the area. Bikes are not allowed, but horses are allowed in some areas. Dogs are allowed, but they are supposed to be on a leash. We saw several dogs, but none of them were on leashes.

At the trailhead, there is one sign pointing to Flat Iron Rock and one sign pointing to the Ancient Juniper Trail. You can take either way if you want to do the Ancient Juniper Trail since it's just a big loop. We followed the sign that said Ancient Juniper Trail.

It starts off pretty flat. The trail is fairly wide, and the ground is a bit soft and sandy. My husband got a lot of sand in his shoes during the walk. After a bit, you do a very gentle incline. It flattens out a bit and then inclines some more. As you wind around the trail, you'll rotate through several gentile inclines, flat spots and gentle declines.

If you're in shape, this is a very easy hike. However, if you're a 311 pound woman who just started exercising a week ago, it was a bit long and hilly. There are no benches along the trail. There weren't even any rocks or tree stumps that would serve as a bench. We took a couple of breaks along the trail, but for the most part we were able to just keep walking. The stops were mainly due to muscle cramps since it was 29 degrees when we started the hike.

The view is less than stellar, and there's no real destination to look forward to. If you want to see something, you can visit Flat Iron Rock, but that adds another 3 miles to the trip. Something we were just not willing to do at that point. There were several interesting trees, rocks and plants along the way, but there wasn't anything spectacular like a waterfall, a lake or a scenic viewpoint.

The book listed the hike as 2.5 miles. MapMyHike showed it as 3.3 miles once we were done. That was a bit annoying since we had only planned on a 2.5 mile hike, and only had energy for a 2.5 mile hike. At the 2.75 mile mark, I was a bit tired and cranky. I'm glad I went, and I enjoyed myself, but I wasn't prepared for 3.3 miles. If I was in shape, I probably wouldn't have noticed the extra distance, but I'm not in shape and I did notice the difference. The book also lists it as having a 50 foot elevation change. This is true since the high point is 50 feet above the low point, which was verified on MapMyHike, but it's also misleading. Remember all of the gentle inclines and declines that I mentioned? Well, they added up to 154 feet total. Which is nothing if you're in shape, but we've established that I'm not in shape.

I would still classify this as a hike worth going on, and we plan on visiting again to do other sections of the area. There wasn't a lot to see, but we did have fun. The gentle inclines did make me huff and puff a little bit, but I didn't have to stop to take a break. The path was wide enough so we both fit across it so we were able to chat a bit along the way.

Below is my BodyMedia screen shot. The blue blob on the left is the hike. The blips to the right are my shopping trips and then putting the groceries away. I tried to use the Workout tab for this hike, but I hit the button to turn my screen off and apparently that messes up the Workout tab. About 30 minutes into the hike, I looked at my phone and it said that it was disconnected. I have also included the MapMyHike screen shot. The two different devices had a drastically different opinion on how many calories I burned. MapMyHike thinks I burned over 2,000 calories, but BodyMedia has it around 900.

Summary:

Pros: It's not too far out of Bend. The hike was relatively flat. It should be accessible year round.

Cons: The scenery is rather blah. Parts of the trail are very sandy and my husband got a lot of sand in his shoes. The sandy path also makes the walk a little more challenging. 

Restrooms: There are no restrooms.

Rest Stops: There are no benches along the trip. There was one tree stump that looked like it could have been used as a seat, but we did not use it.