Eugene, OR
Named for civic leader Mahlon Sweet, a Eugene businessman who championed the airport's construction in the 1940s. Owned by the City of Eugene, ten miles northwest of downtown. Class C, two runways (16R/34L at 8,005ft, 16L/34R at 6,000ft). Commercial service from Alaska, American, United, Allegiant, and Avelo serving the University of Oregon community and the regional timber economy. Lane Aviation has run the FBO since 1975. Cottage Grove's Cottage Grove State Airport (61S) — a grass strip — is 20 miles south and a frequent first-solo cross-country destination for KEUG students.
A 682-foot basalt butte in downtown Eugene, named for Eugene Skinner (the city's founder, who built his 1846 cabin at its base). Now a city park with a paved road to the summit, a basalt-column climbing wall, and a flagpole that's been a Eugene landmark since 1859. The view from the top covers the entire central city — campus, downtown, the Willamette River — and on clear days the Coast Range to the west. The butte's northeast side is a columnar basalt outcrop popular with local climbers; the city built a maintained climbing wall there in the 1990s.
The most storied track-and-field venue in the United States. Built in 1919 for the University of Oregon football team and converted to a track facility in 1921, Hayward has hosted seven US Olympic Trials and is the spiritual home of American distance running — Steve Prefontaine's home track, the Bowerman Mile, the place where Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman cooked up Nike. Completely rebuilt in 2020 with a striking timber-and-glass cantilevered grandstand designed by SRG Partnership, the new Hayward is now also a championship indoor venue. Houses the Bowerman Athletic Building and a track-and-field museum.
A 2,058-foot forested butte at the southern edge of Eugene, the highest point in the city's parks system and the dominant green hill on Eugene's southern skyline. The summit trail is a half-mile, 700-foot climb that pops out above the trees onto a bare basalt knob with 360° views — the entire Willamette Valley north, the Coast Range west, the Cascades east, and on clear days both Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters. A favorite local hike, busy on weekends, but quiet weekdays. The butte's shape from the air is distinctive: a near-perfect green dome rising 1,200 feet above the valley floor.
Three closely-spaced stratovolcanoes — North Sister (10,085 ft), Middle Sister (10,047 ft), and South Sister (10,358 ft) — running north-south along the Cascade crest west of Bend. North Sister is the oldest and most eroded, all rotted volcanic rock and exposed dikes. South Sister is the youngest and most likely to erupt next (USGS monitors active ground deformation). Between them sits Middle Sister, the symmetric postcard cone. Surrounding the Sisters is a wilderness of lava flows, pumice plains, alpine lakes, and Collier Glacier — one of the largest in the lower 48 outside of Washington and Wyoming.