Oakridge Offers Miles of Picturesque, Quiet, Forest Trails for Mountain Biking and Hiking

In the time it takes to polish off a breakfast burrito and listen to an episode or two of your favorite podcast, Derrick Bell wants you to know that you could be enjoying the solitude of nearly 600 miles of biking and hiking through serene forest trails, reminiscent of Central Oregon a couple decades ago.

“In less than an hour and 45 minutes, you can be in a wilderness setting where there’s no population, no cell service, and be out on a trail and not see anybody else all day long,” says Bell, 59, a former Bend resident who, since 1996, has lived in Oakridge, a small town of approximately 3,000 residents nestled in the Willamette National Forest.

“It’s a good spot to escape to and be out in the forest without seeing any signs of civilization whatsoever,” said Bell, a longtime mountain biker and the trail crew leader for Oakridge Trails Alliance (OTA), a nonprofit group dedicated to maintaining and updating existing trails, and constructing new ones in Oakridge, which is about 100 miles southwest of Bend.

“We’re a very small town, and it’s entirely surrounded by national forest,” he said. “It’s one of the few, and I think it might be the only city, in the United States that’s entirely surrounded by national forest.”

Oakridge is a “total mountain bike destination,” said Lev Stryker, 50, a longtime Bend resident and owner of Cog Wild. The Bend-based mountain-bike business provides guided rides, skills instruction, and seasonal shuttle service to trailheads in Bend and Oakridge, where the company set up a satellite storefront 11 years ago. Stryker has been mountain biking in Oakridge for 25 years.

“It was a no-brainer to expand there,” Stryker said, but added that improvements are needed to ensure it continues to be a destination for outdoor adventurers. It’s lagged behind similar locales in recent years, he said.

“It’s gotten a little stale. There’s definitely a lot of people that still come there, but a lot of other places have new trails and infrastructure has been built, and they’ve become more attractive to tourism,” Stryker said. “Oakridge needs a little boost. Some new trails, maybe a new hotel, some new lodging, bring it up to speed, into a recreation economy, into something more vibrant. Something like Moab (Utah) or Bellingham (Washington).”

Stryker said the ability to ride from town directly to trails, as many cyclists do in Bend, is a definite need, as are more beginner-to-intermediate routes and “stacked loops.” Those types of trails have a common trailhead, with myriad options for riders to experience from that point. A beginner up to an expert rider could start from the same place, and trails build on each other. Currently, Oakridge has several stellar “singular” rides, Stryker said, such as the Alpine Trail, a 17-mile track, but once you complete a ride, you have a shuttle, typically, to your next one or call it a day. If there were more stacked routes, like the Phil’s Trail system in Bend, that would be ideal, he said.

“There’s a central trailhead and multiple options, like a climbing route that goes up but then has different options to go down. There might be a black diamond downhill trail but also a blue flow trail and a green beginner trail,” Stryker said.

Bell said OTA is “currently working on creating a wider network of trails that will be geared toward mountain biking” as it continues to grow. Oakridge has had various trail groups over the last 20 years, Bell said, that have “morphed” into what it now the OTA, which has until recently subsisted on donations. The group is “striving to get a bigger donation stream so we don’t have to rely on government grants because they’re a little bit more specific and then also, they’re from the government, so you never know.” Stryker said donations and fundraising are two areas in which he thinks Central Oregonians could really help in Oakridge.

“Based on the data that Cog Wild’s collected, like who’s booking our tours and shuttles there, a large portion are from Bend and Central Oregon,” he said. “If we’re seeing a bunch of people going over there and riding and recreating, it does make sense to reach out to this community and say, ‘Hey, come over again. Help us either on the ground or with injecting some funding or fundraising efforts. All of that helps, and I think the Bend community does that really well.”

Until the donation pool gets bigger and more fundraising occurs, Bell said OTA is hard at work thanks to two sizeable grants it was awarded recently to help fund a dedicated staff of four who can maintain and update trails. Approximately 370 miles are mixed used for mountain biking, hikers, and equestrians, and then another 150 solely for hikers and equestrians. Motorcycles and e-bikes are allowed on another 70 miles.

“We have a paid trail crew of four people. That’s a pretty big deal,” Bell said. “We’ve been trying to get a paid trail crew for at least 15 years now, and we’ve finally pulled it all together and pulled it off.”

One of the grants, from the National Forest Foundation, dedicates $500,000 toward new-trail construction and connection of existing trails. The other grant, for $100,000, is “more of a trail-maintenance grant,” Bell said, from the U.S. government as part of the Great American Outdoors Act. The GAOA is for maintaining existing trails in the Oakridge area.

A key OTA project, in addition to general maintenance of existing trails, is construction of a connector of the Bunchgrass and High Divide trails with the Fuji Mountain Trail to enable mountain bikers to avoid gravel forest roads as they ride from Waldo Lake all the way to Oakridge. It’ll be about 120 miles with the connector.

While Oakridge has the trails, isn’t crowded, and now has a dedicated trail crew, Bell isn’t content to rest on the OTA’s laurels. He’s hoping to encourage more Central Oregon-based outdoor enthusiasts to check out what Oakridge has to offer. Over the past five years, he’s noticed an increased presence of Bend mountain bikers coming over the mountain to enjoy Oakridge’s trails and wants to see that continue.

“It’s great. The more, the merrier,” he said, adding he still makes his way to Bend to ride, but it’s definitely a different experience from riding in Oakridge. “I enjoy Bend and really like going there, but I know what I’m going to get when I go there. The trails are good, but I’m going to see plenty of other people if I go to Bend to ride. It’s basically to socialize because I’m going to see all sorts of different people on the trail. It’s kind of the opposite over here in Oakridge. You can get out in the middle of nowhere and be by yourself. Oakridge is a really good place to do that.”

Bell is hoping that while more Central Oregon outdoor enthusiasts heed the call of the Oakridge trails, they also step up to help support the Oregon gem that’s close to home. OTA has about eight “regular” volunteers, mostly from the Oakridge and Eugene area, who show up for the weekly Wednesday workdays. There’s also a volunteer workday on every third Saturday of the month. The group uses its Facebook and Instagram accounts to get the word out.

“As far as mountain biking goes, I feel like trail work is part of the program. You’re out there in the woods, you might tear stuff up a little bit, and so, you know, it’s nice to give back to what you’re using,” Bell said. “But also, and I don’t want to dive too deep into it, with our government and the trimming back that’s gone on in various organizations, we’ve seen cutbacks in the forest service. I think in this last year, there were three forest service trail people in the Oakridge area whereas in the past, they’ve had a half-dozen or more, and then they’d hire Northwest Youth Corps (teens) in the summer. They’re not going to be able to do that this year. So, there are less forest service employees to help take care of trails, which means that it’s going to be a little bit more on the user groups. They’re going to have to take care of the trails. That’s just my observation, and I don’t want to throw too much politics into it, but we need to come out and help take care of our public lands. It’s becoming more and more important if we want to keep on using the public lands.”

To find out more about volunteering with OTA, reach out via its socials or email Bell at derrickbell.67@gmail.com. The next Saturday work party is set for Feb. 28 at 9 am at the Cloverpatch Connector Trail .

This article appears in the Source February 12, 2026.