Oregon’s only unpaved state highway cuts through a 600-foot canyon east of Bend

It’s 40 minutes east of Bend

Central Oregon’s high desert opens up fast once you leave Prineville heading south on Highway 27.

The road follows the Crooked River for 43 miles through open range and deep canyon country, and you can drive most of it without seeing another car.

Private ranches sit between public rangelands, with rolling hills and basalt buttes on both sides. The route ends where it meets Highway 20, but the best stuff happens in the canyon between.

What the river carved here took millions of years, and it shows.

Lava floods built these walls 16 million years ago

About 50 million years of geologic history sit exposed in the Lower Crooked River canyon. A massive basalt flood roughly 16.7 million years ago helped carve the landscape you see today.

Then, around 350,000 years ago, a Newberry lava flow reached Smith Rock and kept pushing downstream. The lava cooled at different rates and left behind tall basalt columns stacked along the canyon walls.

All three reaches of the Crooked River earned Wild and Scenic designation on Oct. 28, 1988.

Basalt columns rise 600 feet from the river

Canyon walls climb as high as 600 feet above the water. Western juniper trees grip the steep, rocky hillsides where you would not expect anything to grow.

Talus slopes of loose rock and angular “post pile” cliffs line parts of the gorge, and the mix of rock layers gives the walls a banded look that changes color depending on the light.

The basalt formed inside the canyon over time as lava met water and cooled in place. Every bend in the road shows you a different face of it.

Chimney Rock towers over the highway below

You will see Chimney Rock before you reach it. The basalt column sits perched on top of the canyon, rising above the highway like a smokestack left behind by something ancient.

Lava that cooled slowly created its stacked, tower-like shape, and the whole formation stands as one of the most recognized sights along the byway. From the valley floor, it looks like it could tip over.

Up close, you realize how solid 16 million years of cooling rock really is.

A 1.4-mile trail climbs to Cascade volcano views

The Chimney Rock trail runs about 1.4 miles one way to the foot of the rock.

You gain roughly 500 feet through switchbacks that cross ground covered in juniper, sagebrush and bunch grass.

A bench near the top looks out over the river far below, and on clear days you can spot Mount Bachelor, Broken Top and the Three Sisters lined up along the horizon. The climb takes most people about 45 minutes up.

Give yourself time to sit at that bench.

Redband trout hold in the current year-round

The Chimney Rock stretch is a classic tail-water fishery, and fly anglers come back to it season after season.

Redband trout, a desert-adapted cousin of the rainbow trout, hold in the current here alongside mountain whitefish.

The flows run gentle and steady, so if you have never cast a fly rod, this is a forgiving place to learn.

The Bureau of Land Management calls this stretch world-class fishing water, and the lack of crowds means you can work a run without company.

Bald eagles winter along the canyon cliffs

Bald eagles show up along the Crooked River in winter, perching in the cottonwoods near the water.

Golden eagles, ospreys and other raptors nest higher in the basalt cliffs where the walls give them a clear view of everything below.

The river corridor also serves as important winter range for mule deer, and red-tailed hawks circle overhead most of the year.

Caves, talus slopes and grassy plateaus all give wildlife room to move, and you can spot most of it from the road.

The gravel section runs 18.5 miles with no pavement

South of the canyon, Highway 27 turns to graded gravel, and this roughly 18.5-mile stretch is the only unpaved state highway in Oregon. The state transportation department has kept it that way for decades.

Your car can handle it fine, but expect dust and washboard in dry weather. Traffic drops to almost nothing on this section.

You feel like you left the state highway system entirely, and in a way, you did. No other road in Oregon operates quite like this one.

Nine campgrounds sit right on the riverbank

Nine year-round campgrounds line the Wild and Scenic stretch of the byway, and many campsites sit just feet from the Crooked River.

Two day-use areas give you picnic tables and river access without the overnight commitment. You wake up to canyon walls rising directly overhead, and the only sound is water moving over rock.

The setting mixes easy road access with a feeling that you drove a long way from everything. No reservations needed.

Just pull in and pick a spot.

Pedal 18 miles on a state scenic bikeway

The Crooked River Canyon Scenic Bikeway runs 18 miles from Prineville to Big Bend Campground, and Oregon designated it a state scenic bikeway in 2018.

The ride starts through farmland, then the canyon walls close in and the road narrows between basalt cliffs and the river.

Gravel cyclists especially favor the unpaved southern section where the surface gets rough and the traffic disappears. You can ride the whole thing in a morning and still have time to fish in the afternoon.

Otter Bench trails ride the canyon rim

The Otter Bench trail system covers about 7.4 miles on top of the gorge, running along benches high above near-vertical canyon walls.

Most of the network is open to hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding, but the steep Lone Pine and Pink trails are reserved for hikers only.

From the rim, you look straight down into the Lower Crooked River canyon with nothing blocking the view. The trails sit high enough that the river looks like a thin green line cutting through the rock below.

Springs keep a green ribbon alive in dry country

Western juniper trees dot the steep hillsides throughout the corridor, and rimrock ledges and eroded lava flows edge the winding canyon on both sides.

Springs and seeps feed a green riparian zone that stands out against the brown and gray of semi-arid country. The river cuts a rare, stable ribbon of water through land that gets less than 10 inches of rain a year.

The scenery shifts from open range to narrow gorge and back again, and you feel each change as the road bends.

Drive the Lower Crooked River Byway in Oregon

You can reach the byway on State Highway 27 between Prineville and Highway 20, about 40 minutes east of Bend. The northern section from Prineville is paved, while the southern 18.5 miles is graded gravel.

Nine campgrounds along the Chimney Rock segment cost $8 per night for a single site and $16 for a group site, with a $2 charge per extra vehicle. No reservations, 14-day limit.

Much of the route is open range, so watch for livestock. Cell service is limited, and rattlesnakes are common in warm months.

Bring water.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Central Oregon’s Cascade Lakes byway packs a dozen lakes into one wild 66-mile stretch
• Oregon’s biggest state park has 10 waterfalls on one trail, and you can walk behind four of them
• Oregon put this rust-colored canyon on its Seven Wonders list and the rest of America is sleeping on it