New off-road trails planned for Crescent region south of La Pine
Published: August 27. 2008 4:00AM PST
Off-highway vehicle riders that live around Crescent Junction are kind of trapped.
“If they have an ATV, they can’t actually legally get to any trail system,” said Joni Mogstad, a board member of the BlueRibbon Coalition that works to maintain access to public lands. “People ride down the roads, but they can’t do it legally.”
And the same is true for people who live in a subdivision near Chemult, she said: “Legally, they’re isolated.”
So Mogstad, who lives in Eugene but has a cabin by Odell Butte, would like to see some legal trails that would connect riders to a range of sites across the Deschutes National Forest.
And the U.S. Forest Service is starting an effort to determine where those legal trails could be in an area of the Crescent Ranger District, south of La Pine.
“We’re basically starting from scratch,” said Joan Kittrell, project leader with the Crescent Ranger District. “We know there’s user-created trails out there, we know that there’s use off-road, and we know people use this area in different ways — and that’s what we want to hear from the public.”
As part of a national Forest Service rule, the agency will ban most off-road travel, unless it’s in a designated area or on a designated trail, she said.
But the Crescent Ranger District doesn’t have any designated trails for off-highway vehicles.
So staff with the agency have identified a V-shaped area in the southern part of the Deschutes National Forest where they will consider designating trails for off-highway vehicle users such as motorcycle or quad riders, Kittrell said.
Public input sought
They’ll hold two public meetings, where people can identify trails that staff might not know about, discuss where they would like trails to run, or talk about how to make existing trails more interesting to riders.
The final result will probably include a combination of new trails, including those on roads now overgrown and closed, and trails that riders have unofficially created over the years, she said.
“The majority of the new trails will probably be existing roads. We don’t foresee building any trails cross-country,” she said, although the agency could build some new routes to connect trials or make loops.
Most of the newly designated trails will probably be those longer trails or loops, she added. There are also three areas — Junction Sno-park, Mushroom Camp and Boundary Spring — that staff are considering making into staging areas for off-highway vehicles, with about 50 to 100 miles of designated trails around each.
There are three areas across Central Oregon where the Forest Service is considering designating additional trails, said Mollie Chaudet, who is leading the travel management project.
In addition to the Three Trails area near Crescent, staff with the agency have been looking at the Lava Rock area in the Bend-Fort Rock District and the McKay Creek area in the Ochoco National Forest.
The plan is to have trail proposals for each area this fall or winter, she said.
Concerns of crowding
In Crescent, Ben Sunderland is concerned that only allowing people on designated routes will crowd the forests, since he already sees between four and 20 people on motorized outings.
“It’s one thing if you put 20 people in an area that’s 50 square miles,” he said.
“You keep narrowing that to 10, that’s something else again.”
Sunderland, who is on the steering committee for the Oregon Recreation Coalition, said he’d like to see a system of trails that has destinations, like trails that go from residential communities to recreation spots.
And Mogstad said that she would like to see some of the facilities already in place — like sno-parks and shelters — used for ATVs in the summertime, even if that means sharing those facilities and trails with other users like horse riders for short stretches. And there needs to be variety and options in the trail system, she added.
“When you’re in a setting where everybody goes to the same place over and over and over again,” she said, “it doesn’t provide those children an opportunity to appreciate what the outdoors is.”
Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.
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