Recently The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) informed the Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA) that an unauthorized trail has been build on Horse Ridge. Subsequently COTA put up signs at both the start and finish of the trail declaring it shut.
The situation brings up a growing national and local concern about bootleg trails. On the national scale, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is paying more attention to the elimination of all bootleg trails on public lands.
An Associated Press story from this past summer states: “The U.S Forest Service is cracking down after renegade bikers secretly cut up to 30 miles of trails in the Tahoe backcountry over the past decade.
“Agency officials said a hardcore group of bikers seeking access to steeper, more demanding terrain is to blame for bootleg trails in national forests across the country, including those in California, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Utah.”
Here in Central Oregon, the building of renegade or bootleg trails hasn’t been much of a problem because of the close work COTA has been doing with both the U.S.F.S. and the BLM over the past decade.
But lately, with the popularity of freeride mountain biking have come the demand for more steeper and more challenging trails. Rather than wait to get USFS or BLM approval, the bootleggers go to work.
The advent of local bootleg trails has given rise to fears that some of that cooperative work between users and the land managers will unravel.
This is especially true at Horse Ridge, where, over a period of years, a number of trails have been created and were accepted by the BLM. That agency has requested through COTA that no new trails be created there until the agency has a chance to make a detailed study of rider usage on the Ridge and how that riding impacts the terrain and wildlife.
Unfortunately, that study has been delayed because of the BLM’s focus on the Cline Buttes recreation project.
Count me among those who have been impatient with the BLM as I’ve had my eye on creating at least two new trails at Horse Ridge. Yet I’ve held off and hope that sometime this year that the BLM will move ahead and consider the potential trail additions.
So I plead with other erstwhile trail builders to hold off and follow COTA’s lead on new trail development in conjunction with the land managers. In the meantime, work on the trails we already have in place while lobbying for more new trails in the future.
The days of building trails on the sly and then having them reluctantly approved by the USFA or BLM are over. It’s time to work to keep rider-public agency relations strong. When we work together, the land agencies have shown that they much more responsive to trail building requests.
As Mark Eller of the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) noted recently: ” the pirate trail builders believe they have to build them under cover because they won’t get the riding experience they want if they go through channels. We’re working hard to show that’s not the case.”
And so are conscientious Central Oregon riders.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.
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I totally applaud the ‘Rouge Trail’ Builders. Again, it’s mountain bikes that do the least amount of damage to a trail, even then the deer. So until the USFS, BLM, COTA, IMBA and who ever else is involved in getting trails built legally let the freeriders/DH’ers create trails to satisfy their needs, I say, BUILD AWAY!!!! Problem is, it takes years and years to get legal trails built, and THEN when those legal trails are allowed, they end up being nothing more then an over glamorized XC trail at most. Look at what the so called COFreeriders have done….oooohhh built a boring line with wooden structures trying to go be North Shore wannabes…nothing hardcore at all, and look what happened…got shut down. So for those of us that actually can ride the more demanding terrain, no matter what it will always be Rouge at least in Oregon…so Keep building, and let’s build in even more remote areas that will take longer for the trail Nazis (the all above mentioned) to find.
Well there Mr. Corey Reese!!!!!
We all know now who is helping to undermine and destroy the years of hard ground work that COTA has been so generous to put forth; for YOUR enjoyment! I seriously feel sorry for you as a rider; that you think the only way to build fun trail, is building crappy pirate trails. I take great offense to being reffered to as a NAZI!!!!!! You may want to rethink the way you are portraying yourself to our community. Oh yeah, sorry about the Lair, the play loop, the new dirt jumps by the play loop, and cline butte; we as an organization don’t care at all about the freeriders and dirt jumpers…. You sir should be ashamed of yourself!
Although illegal trail building my be what got mountain biking where it is, in places like Central Oregon, where a group like COTA jumps through all the necessary hoops to build legal trails, rogue trailbuilders only do detrimant to the potential expansion of good trails. Its people like Corey, who think they understand what good trail building takes, but hten go find the first fall line they can and go straight down it, making an erosion factor that makes mountain biking look like an enemy of nature- COTA and IMBA build trails that ast for years or decades, they work slow, through the legal stipulations, but htis is so they don’t have to hide when others come around. I build pirate trails for years before i moved to Central Oregon, but I learned alot the art of trail building through working with advocacy groups, and doing it the right and legal way is important, if you love the sport, you do it right, rogue trails fight progress, and COTA is working hard to get legal dh trails built, but it takes time, and whining and doing the wrong thing just makes a mess of the whole process and slows it down even further. Grow Up man, you must be an adolescent, because your talking like a child insulting the people who are doing the right thing for the sport they are passionate about, your bike will be collecting dust, when all the riders your busy dissing are still out building and riding.
I have never seen any xc/equestrian/clubs/hikers/ or any other so called official agency that even comes close to the amount effort, time, and risk that the ORGINAL(PIRATE) trail builders have done. This so called MTb advocacy groups are mostly bureaucratic bed wetters. BLM/DNR are management companies for lands, not owners. The owners are the people!(that’s us, in case you have forgotten) When these organizations want to effect real change and therefore take some real risk for the sport, maybe then they will have earned the right to criticize the people who started this movement in the first place. Biking was dead, if wasn’t for b.c locals, then most of you who have benefitted from the revolution of equipment and wouldn’t even be out there in the first place. Mtbing was alot more empty when suspension was almost none existent and brakes were cantalevers attached to straight geomentrty frames. As for crappie built freeride/dh trails, that is because of a lack of guidence by expierence builders/framers and so forth. The reason this situation exists is because of libaliaty and the subsequent lack of balls. The NORTHSHORE was born out of ambition and desire, we still need to learn alot from our brothers to the north.
p.s. if your riding crappie build freeride/dh trails, you oviously wouldn’t know what a real dh/freeride trail even looks like.
Interesting thread… but really now, if you proclaim your right to build your own personal trail on public lands, then aren’t you also acknowledging everyone else has the same “right” to build their equestrian, motorcycle, jeep, hiking, unicycle (etc.) trail on top of, through, or right next to yours? Based on many years of personal experience, I can tick off a list of illegalities and problems from rougue trail builders: trespass on private land, building in wildlife nesting areas, in research study areas and archeological sites, etc. Cota and all the other trail advocacy groups deserve great credit and thanks for working with land management agencies. It’s rarely fun, usually involves compromise, and is always time consuming to the extreme… but in the end it gets trails built that respect the natural resources that belong to us all and don’t ignore the legitimate interests of other public land owners (yes, that’s us all, including people who, gasp…don’t like freeride/dh trails). Trail Nazi? You’ve been hanging out at too many tea bag parties dude.