Cascade Lakes Relay Runners race in view of Mount Bachelor. [Photo by The Oregonian/Oregonlive]
This weekend’s Cascade Lakes Relay is his last year to run and walk deep in August.
Organizers announced plans to move Central Oregon’s largest annual sporting event to June 2023 for its 16th year. The move, organizers say, is intended to provide a “safer … more enjoyable” event with cooler temperatures and a reduced likelihood of wildfire smoke.
“In the past five years, we have experienced extreme temperatures, poor and sometimes unhealthy air quality, and wildfires that threatened our ability to safely produce CLR on the first weekend in August,” said co-founder and CEO Scott Douglass. .
“In 2021, the Bootleg Fire forced us to drastically adjust our event just a few days earlier, and almost every year we face challenging conditions due to changing weather,” Douglass said.
Departing Diamond Lake Resort on Friday, teams of 12 runners traverse 216 miles of the Oregon outback, navigating the Cascade Lake Highway, around Mount Bachelor and finishing Saturday on the banks of the Deschutes River at Bend’s Riverbend Park. The walking portion starts from Silver Lake and covers 132 miles.
More than 85% of relay participants travel from outside of Central Oregon for the event. The move in 2023 to June 23-24 coincides with the start of summer and follows Father’s Day.
“It’s amazing how an event like this brings families, friends and colleagues together to conquer a tough race together and have a lot of fun along the way with crazy team themes and creative costumes,” says Douglass.
Since its inception in 2008, the Cascade Relays Foundation has contributed more than $600,000 to local nonprofits, school groups and community organizations. See cascaderelays.com/cascade-lakes/event-info/
Part of the upper Rogue River is closed to chinook
The upper Rogue River upstream of the Dodge Bridge on Highway 234 is now closed to all chinook salmon fishing, but steelhead fishing remains open there.
The closure, which went into effect Sunday night, is the annual conservation closure to allow spring chinook salmon to spawn in the Rogue mainstem.
Chinook fishing downstream of the Dodge Bridge remains open through August on the upper Rogue.
The Hatchery Hole along the seawall at Cole Rivers Hatchery also opened to steelhead anglers on Monday. This area is closed during the spring chinook season to curb rowdy anglers and the illegal hooking that for years plagued the hole during the spring chinook season.
