Explore These Less-Crowded Wilderness Trails in the Central Oregon Cascades Explore These Less-Crowded Wilderness Trails in the Central Oregon Cascades Sponsored By Adventure is different for everyone, and in Central Oregon, you can find your own — from lava flows, desert terrain and mountain lakes to breweries, shopping, and luxury resorts. You truly are in the center of it all. Get inspired and plan your future vacation at VisitCentralOregon.com. Hikers love the high peaks and wilderness areas of Oregon’s Central Cascades for good reason. The glacier-gouged volcanoes rocket out of the earth in a scream of rock and ice, while placid lakes shimmer in the palms of the pine-scented forests that surround them. But like IPAs and Sparrow Bakery’s ocean rolls, too much of a good thing isn’t great, and such easy access has led to overuse that threatens the very thing that made these areas special.