Indian paintbrush was still blooming in mid-August in this meadow between Benson and Tenas lakes.

I say this a lot lately, but in my two decades of living and hiking in Central Oregon — where there seems to be an inexhaustible number of places to explore — somehow, I had never ventured to Benson and Tenas lakes.

To be fair, this hike is in the Willamette National Forest, which is a little west of our usual stomping grounds. Given how much I like lake swimming, and how my wife prefers to have a destination when hiking, regrets, I have a few. If either of those categories sound a bit like you, do not delay going at least to Benson Lake. It’s only 1.3 miles from the trailhead to the lake, which has its own entry in “Bend, Overall,” a guidebook whose last edition came out in 2010, but which I still consider indispensable. In it, author Scott Cook writes glowingly of Benson, which he calls “A photogenic swimming lake.”

Not everyone is oblivious to the merits of this trail, which is among those that require a Wilderness Permit, which we were lucky to score the evening before we intended to hike. The drive to the trailhead took just an hour driving west from Bend on highways 20 and 242. After passing Dee Wright Observatory, we continued another six miles to the Benson/Tenas Lakes Trailhead, turning right when we reached the sign for Scott Lake and proceeding about a mile to the trailhead, discovering a lot of cars presumably parked by earlier risers than we.

As usual, this didn’t mean a crowded trail, passing very few folks after we set out on the trail to Benson, a moderately uphill walk through sun-dappled forest. We explored the south shore trail and found plenty of spots to get in the deep-blue waters of the lake. We swam till chilled, warmed up in the sun and hopped back in a few times. Basically, we lived for a few hours the life I wish we could live all the time.

By the way, it was only after the fact that I consulted “Bend, Overall” and discovered Cook’s entry about Benson Lake, in which he writes of the very worthwhile endeavor of getting to some of the higher points around the lake, which affords views of the Three Sisters, which would explain the people we spotted scrambling high above the north portion of the lake.

As it were, we focused on swimming. After hanging out for a couple of hours, we decided to continue on to Tenas Lakes, a batch of small lakes nestled together and offering their own kind of scenery. The hike took us through meadows where Indian paintbrush and a few other flowers were still blooming. We explored only the first of the lakes we arrived at, which is also the largest of them, a shallow lake with clear waters in which we could see salamanders skirting along the bottom.

After another half an hour in the water, we decided it was time to head back to the car, having clocked a lot of scenery in an out-and-back hike of just five miles total.

On the way home, we stopped at an uncrowded Dee Wright Observatory for a peek at area peaks, followed by a well-earned dinner in Sisters.