Fifteen thousand years ago, the Cascade Range was covered with a massive ice cap, up to a half-mile thick and extending 170 miles from Mt. Hood south to Mt. McLoughlin. As the climate warmed, a disjunct population of Alaska yellow cedars was left behind in a unique glacial bowl, known as Echo Basin, where cold air collects and pools. Just an hour’s drive from Bend, this basin and its old-growth cedars can be explored on a 2.5-mile loop hike, along with alpine meadows and glorious wildflower displays in late spring and summer.

Tucked away in a seldom-visited corner of Fremont-Winema National Forest, just a half-hour drive east of Highway 97 south of Crescent, is a collection of groundwater-fed fens (peat wetlands) supporting some of the richest concentrations of rare and distinctive plants in the Pacific Northwest. Formed in thick deposits of volcanic pumice from the eruption of Mt. Mazama 7,700 years ago, these fens are permanently wet year-round, with a fascinating assortment of mosses, sedges, wildflowers and even carnivorous plants.

In our scientific age, it’s hard to believe that the origins of any landform could still be unexplained, but this is the case with the extensive soil mounds and their encircling rock rings found northeast of Madras on the Shaniko Plateau. Known as mima (my-muh) mounds, several theories have been advanced about their formation, from differential erosion, to Ice Age freeze-thaw cycles, to soil movement by foraging gophers. But no one theory is widely accepted and these unusual land features remain a puzzle to geologists today. Hundreds of acres of this mima mound topography can be explored on BLM land near Shaniko.

What the heck are fens? Unlike bogs, which are acidic, low in nutrients and dominated by sphagnum moss, fens are fed by mineral-rich groundwater, creating neutral or alkaline peatlands with a rich diversity of brown mosses, sedges, wildflowers and even carnivorous plants. Along the east slopes of the Cascades in Central Oregon, fens are rare, occurring only between 4,500’-6,000’ in isolated perched aquifers over slow-draining glacial till from the last Ice Age. Two secluded but accessible fens can be found near Little Cultus Lake.

The best spot in Central Oregon to view spring wildflowers? For sheer variety and extent, the loop road around Big Summit Prairie is hard to beat in late May and early June. Located at 4,500’ elevation in Ochoco National Forest about 30 miles east of Prineville, this 15,000-acre prairie is mostly privately-owned, but is surrounded by wildflower meadows, dry grasslands and rock prairies on Forest Service land.