Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint

Bend is one of six American cities with a volcano inside its limits. Pilot Butte — an extinct cinder cone rising nearly 500 feet above the surrounding high desert — sits not at the edge of town but at its center, visible from most of it. Trails wind through juniper and sage to a summit where nine Cascade peaks come into view at once. The park was a gift to the state in 1928, and in 2018 it logged nearly 950,000 visits — the most of any Oregon state park east of the Cascades.