McKenzie Pass has a split personality. On the western side, the road climbs through damp forests of Douglas fir and hemlock, past waterfalls and moss, and then, quite suddenly, you emerge into an apocalyptic field of black lava. The Cascade Range has been erupting for a long time, and the lava fields at the top of the pass, left by volcanic activity that continued until a few thousand years ago, stretch away on both sides in jagged, frozen waves, broken only by the stunted trees that have gained a foothold. At 5,325 feet, about 1,623 metres, the pass is a high, windy, exposed place, with the snowy peaks of the Three Sisters rising above the lava and Mount Washington, a spire of eroded volcanic rock, standing alone to the north.
At the summit stands the Dee Wright Observatory, a stone lookout built of lava rock in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, with narrow windows that frame the surrounding peaks and are marked with their names. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, and from the roof you can see more than a dozen summits on a clear day. The walls have slits like the sights of a cannon, each aligned to a mountain.
The road itself is tight and twisting, built for the wagons of the nineteenth century and rebuilt for cars, with hairpin bends and a narrow surface, and it is a firm favourite of motorcyclists. Large vehicles are not allowed, which keeps the traffic modest, and the road is closed in winter, usually from November until June, when snow buries the summit. The eastern side drops in long curves toward the high desert town of Sisters, twenty-one kilometres away, where the air is dry and the pines are open and golden.
Fuel is in Sisters and in the villages on the western side, but not on the pass itself, so fill the tank before you go. Bring warm layers, because the wind at the top can be fierce even in summer, and be careful of loose gravel and lava cinders on the road edges. Sisters, with its western-style storefronts and bakeries, is a fine place to finish.