Pilot Butte Viewpoint, Oregon - Scenic Roadside Look-Outs on Waymarking.com

Pilot Butte is a 500 foot high cinder cone located in Bend, Oregon. Pilot Butte is a late Pleistocene cinder cone (188,000 years old) and it is surrounded by younger basalt lavas (78,000 years old) from Newberry Volcano to the south. Erosion of the summit has removed the summit crater. Most of the cone was given to the State of Oregon as a memorial to Terrence Hardington Folly. On Sept. 30, 1928 the butte was dedicated as a state park.

Some early maps use the name Red Butte instead of Pilot Butte. The name Pilot developed because the butte became a landmark used by emigrant wagon trains to find Farewell Bend, an easy place to ford the Deschutes River. The town of Bend was platted in 1904 and the Oregon Trunk Railroad (owned by Great Northern Railroad) reached Bend from the north in 1911. In 1916, two large lumber mills opened in Bend, Shevlin-Hixon and Brooks-Scanlon. The first road to the summit of Pilot Butte was started in 1922 and by 1928 the present road was completed along with the rock wall around the summit area.

Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint is reached via a one mile paved road from the west base. The road is open late spring to early fall. There are also two trails to the summit beginning from a trailhead at the east base. At the summit there is a viewing area with signs describing the local history and geology. There is a 360° view of central Oregon. To the west are the volcanic peaks of the Cascade Range, including Mt. Bachelor, Three Sisters, Broken Top, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams (in Washington). To the south is Newberry Volcano, the largest Pleistocene volcano in Oregon covering an area of more than 600 square miles. To the northeast are the Blue Mountains.

There are four signs dealing with the view, see gallery images.

• The City of Bend
• Newberry Volcano
• The Blue Mountains of Oregon
• The Cascade Range of Oregon