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Bend Oregon: High Cascades ATV Tour with Lava Caves & Alpine Lakes

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ATV adventure through Deschutes Forest lava fields caves & lakes

You’ll feel grit on your skin as you drive ATVs through Deschutes National Forest’s wildest corners—from volcanic black sand dunes to Skylight Cave’s eerie beams of light. With a local guide leading the way and stories about astronauts training here, you’ll find yourself laughing one minute and quietly awed the next.

What’s included

Your day includes use of a new Polaris RZR XP1000 four-seater ATV plus DOT-approved helmet and goggles for safety.
An experienced adventure guide leads you along varied trails through Deschutes National Forest, sharing stories at each stop.
Standard damage waiver is included (with premium upgrade available onsite).

Traveler reviews

5.00★★★★★★★★★★

80 verified traveler reviews

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fromUS$ 399 See dates & prices ›

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Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Scenic ATV tour near Sisters Oregon

Arrive at staging area near Sisters
Ride scenic trails to Skylight Cave
Explore beams of light in cave
Ride near base of Cache Mountain
Pass by Cache Creek Toll Station
Drive through Deschutes National Forest trails
Ride near Belknap Lava Field walls
Pass by historic Santiam Wagon Road

★★★★★★★★★★

5.00

(80 reviews)

The Experience

I didn’t really expect to smell pine needles and engine oil at the same time, but that’s what hit me first when we rolled out from the staging area just outside Sisters, Oregon. The air felt sharp—almost cold even though it was summer—and our guide, Mike, handed me a helmet that still had a bit of red dust clinging to it from the last group. He grinned and said something about “real Central Oregon exfoliation.” I laughed but honestly, he wasn’t wrong.

The trails in the Deschutes National Forest aren’t just dirt—they’re all kinds of textures. Sometimes you’re rattling over crunchy black volcanic sand (it gets everywhere), then suddenly you’re weaving through stands of skinny pines where sunlight flickers like strobe lights on your arms. We stopped at Skylight Cave—Mike told us if we wanted to climb down inside, now was our shot. It smelled damp and earthy down there, with these weird shafts of light cutting through the dark. I tried to take a photo but mostly ended up with blurry shadows and my own confused face.

Somewhere near Cache Mountain, we paused again—this time for the view of Mt Washington. The clouds kept shifting so sometimes you’d get this dramatic peak rising up out of nowhere. Mike mentioned that astronauts trained on those lava fields for Apollo missions; I didn’t know that before and it made the place feel kind of otherworldly. We passed by where the old Cache Creek Toll Station used to be—just a sign now—and I tried to picture travelers stopping here a century ago for food or maybe just to rest their backsides after a long ride.

There’s something about bouncing along those trails in an ATV—half adrenaline, half just feeling really small under all those ancient trees—that sticks with you longer than expected. My hands were buzzing from gripping the wheel and I could still taste dust in my mouth hours later. But yeah, every so often I still think about how quiet it got when we killed the engines by that lava wall—just wind and distant birds for a minute before someone cracked a joke about moon rocks.