Dirt in the PNWet

[MagnificentUnicorn]

All of Oregon is turning into tweaker paradise. Passing through Albany/Salem roadside looked like a war zone. One of the reasons I'm out, unfortunately. These people are here because other states are hard on this kind of lifestyle. Until Oregon and Washington toughen up shit will continue to roll downhill.

Being mentally ill and homeless is a lifestyle choice, okay


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[SchralphMacchio]

Is Oakridge going to shit? I might be biased because some trasher stole my camp chair that was holding my camp spot and in return left a truck load of trash behind but it seems much shittier than when I was last here 5-7 years ago. There's multiple Breaking Bad installations along Salmon Creek, trash everywhere, all the roads are lined with DQ cups and Keystone Light empties. Maybe I just didn't notice it last time and am extra pissed about this camp chair/trash dump?

The trails are still great though. You riding this week SchralphMacchio? I'll probably be around until Thursday or Friday, riding in the evenings.

Had some friends come up this last weekend, 2 mags and another BC skiing partner from NorCal. I went out a day early to score a dispersed site for them - and this is the worst I’ve seen in terms of all the dispersed sites being riddled with trash. Granted, I’ve only been here 5 summers, but I also follow all the various FS Ranger District Facebook pages and they are all saying the same thing, that there has been a marked increase in dispersed sites being absolutely trashed.

Case in point, from the site I scored for us, I hauled out about 100 lbs of trash inside 3 contractor cleanup bags, the 40 gallon kind. And that wasn’t the whole of it, just the nasty stuff. I’m talking soiled diapers, foam plates with rotting food, spent alkaline batteries, broken camping equipment, old mugs and pots and pans, etc. I even found trash in the fucking North Fork Middle Fork for Christ’s sake, besides the clothes and shopping bags they left there I also found a bottle of dish detergent- surprising since the foam plates seemed to indicate that these people didn’t wash dishes. I was fuming for HOURS after this, just ask my wife.

Re: riding … man I wish I could, but I spent all my kid-free time allocation this last weekend, plus my car is now in the shop due for big work.

[dfinn]

That sucks! Some people shouldn’t be allowed out of their house!

Another day of exploring around Oakridge biking and looking for cool spots to let the dog swim. There’s broken down trailers all over the place here that are definitely there long term. Not sure why but it seems the FS is not doing much to enforce the 14 day stay limit or whatever it is.

Speaking of FS, they drove by where I’m camping today and I flagged him down to let him know about the trash dump. He didn’t seem shocked at all, said it’s probably someone’s “weekly dump spot”. Which sucks because it’s a pretty nice little spot right on a lake.

One thought that crossed my mind while pedaling up tonight…if the FS doesn’t care about this then they probably wouldn’t give a shit about some rogue bike trails.

Edit: so I’m not just bitching, Larison Rock is in really good shape. Especially the top 2/3rds. Not bad at all pedaled as a loop.

[muted reborn]

When you look for campsites in Oakridge you are competing with the homeless. They are not necessarily mentally ill, people there are broke as shit in that town. If you want to keep a campsite try putting up a few old dusty tarps on a couple strings.

I just spent 4 nights camping there. I picked a spot that wasn't too trashy on the North Fork, it only took 10 minutes to clean up the dirty diapers, broken glass and cigarette butts. So that fact sold me! I saw other massive trash piles in camping spots a month ago off the Salomon, Shralp probably cleaned up one of them. And watch out for the guy in the older red chevy? cruising around, rumor is he's robbing people in broad daylight with a gun. The guy driving around in the truck with the Fuck Biden flag around all the campsites seems harmless though, but why the campsite cruising? Rural OR is as bad as they say. Keeps out the #vanlifers though.

Here's a rural camp spot I saw last week (near BlackRock) that seems claimed by Chad and his good friends. No trash though! Just maybe a few condoms, that's all.



I was honestly going to camp right there for a night but didn't want to get mixed up in the nearby small town drama.

[dfinn]

Chad sounds fun, I’d have a beer with him.

Based on what I’ve seen, I would not camp anywhere along the Salmon, at least not in the first 5 miles or so. I haven’t driven further than that. I was kind of stressed just parking my truck at the dead mountain TH for a few hours while I rode heckletooth and dead mountain.

[SchralphMacchio]

muted, good call on not wanting to get involved with anything going on with Falls City locals! Did you end up hitting Eula? I got the guys on Lawler on Sunday and it’s in wonderful shape right now.

dfinn, I think things get cleaner once you get deeper on 21 up the Middle Fork. Camping out upriver from the bottom of Moon has nice options - but the water is too heavy for a dog. North Fork is perfect for a dog, lots of great slow or practically still parts. Also, the site right at the bottom of Lawler always manages to stay clean - I’ve never seen trash there, and the water runs pretty much all year.

[SchralphMacchio]

While I’m up in the middle of the night, here is a random story about druggies, the unfortunate destitute, or just careless morons in Salmon Creek. Once my wife and I hiked there one July when our daughter was only 6 months old. We heard several rounds of semi auto gunfire followed by an explosion, repeat 5 mins later, going on for an hour. The explosions were just booming off the canyon walls of Salmon Creek.

We found that 2 guys in a clearing across the road from the trail were shooting off their ARs at tannerite targets. They were polite enough to stop shooting when we walked by on the road - and drunk enough to admit that they had just started a grass fire but managed to put it out before it could spread. That shit (tannerite) is made in Eugene, and I have no idea why it is legal to sell and use to people without commercial permits. I could give 2 shits about the guys with their ARs and needing something to shoot them at, it’s the fact that tannerite keeps starting massive wildfires and it’s perfectly legal to sell to morons like these who don’t have any concerns about using them in the woods during fire season. Come fucking on!!!

Re: FS enforcement… I think the District Ranger has like one shared LEO who must be backlogged with other priorities, and the attitude you described must be just another jaded government employee in an underfunded dept. I interfaced with the District Ranger’s LEO a little bit last year re: traps and even a fucking pungi stick being placed on Alpine trail by a mentally ill Westfir local mountain biker who hates shuttle companies. The guy wedged a lot of traps around blind corners that my friends and I had found being the first group on the trail after the forest re-opened after the fires … but the fucking spear tip pungi he placed on the inside of a turn on the Jedi section was what got me to send pics to the District Ranger to make sure they knew what the F this guy had done. Apparently everyone - the local business owners and FS rangers knew who did it, but didnt have evidence that he had done these specific traps.

Oregon is a funny place. I once met a Westfir local at the Oakridge pub, guy in his 70s, who’s strange line of questioning to both me and my wife - and the way he looked at us and our daughter - led us to believe that was the first time this guy had ever seen a biracial couple in real life.

[SchralphMacchio]

One thought that crossed my mind while pedaling up tonight…if the FS doesn’t care about this then they probably wouldn’t give a shit about some rogue bike trails.

It’s the PNW. We don’t have a rogue trail problem for the most part, because any trail that you can’t get a volunteer group to heavily maintain at least twice a year (spring and Fall) will be reclaimed by the forest immediately. I ride with a saw strapped to my frame during those times of year for good reason!!! Even heavily used trails like Goodman or Tire, you are basically running your bars and hands through serious undergrowth while you ride. The trails you are riding on this trip get more hours of volly clearing work every spring and fall than you would believe! And the ones who put in the most hours of work are probably the folks wrenching bikes at Mountain Merc or pouring your espresso at Log Shack Cafe, etc. I definitely try to tip well in that town, and donate money to Disciples of Dirt MTB club every year. I’m hoping once my kids are older I can put in some hours myself!!!

[TAFKALVS]

I feel like the FS is more likely to get bent out of shape over a rogue trail than a tweaker camp, since the rogue trail builder likely operates in society otherwise and can be held accountable. Your average woods tweaker doesn't give a fuck and its risky for a solo FS LEO to deal with them. Pretty screwed up how "underfunded" yet also mismanaged the USFS is. The ranger district I worked in had plenty of money but didn't allocate funds towards more LEO resources even though it was badly needed. Made for some really unsafe and unfortunate stuff happening all the time at popular trailheads and camp sites, because the tweakers & methbillies knew they could get away with it.

[OphirPow]

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[SchralphMacchio]

Enough bitching, here’s some Stoakridge pics that enginerd took of me over the weekend … conditions are cornertastic!
(We do have left turns here, just a funny coincidence that these are all right handlers)

[dfinn]

Rained a little bit last night. Met up with some locals at the top of Eula. Got some good info from them, some things added to my list that definitely weren’t on my radar (or trailforks) before.

[muted reborn]

[californiagrown]

Worth it to buy a day ticket to timberlines bike park? I have a couple hours to kill before my SILs wedding. Rode ski bowl today and had fun, but it's a pretty limited selection of fun stuff there.

[Falcon3]

Worth it to buy a day ticket to timberlines bike park? I have a couple hours to kill before my SILs wedding. Rode ski bowl today and had fun, but it's a pretty limited selection of fun stuff there.

If you’re not feeling the lift, take the shuttle up from Govy for $2 then ride Timberline to Town, it’s a good rip.

[muted reborn]

I rode T-Line a couple weekends ago, it's not good for many many reasons.

I wish I spent the whole day at Sandy Ridge, which I rode later that afternoon after bailing on the lifts.

[dfinn]

Crawfish was pretty fun, kind of reminded me of a lot of trails around Bellingham with all the roots to double and pop off. There's another trail out there that I forgot the name of but it's really good, especially if you like steeps. It's like Eula but in way better condition, doesn't seem like that many people ride it.

Anyone ridden this?
https://www.trailforks.com/trails/the-gift-99705/

[SchralphMacchio]

It just opened a month or two ago. A local rider from Eugene hit it solo 2 weeks ago and was found unconscious there, life flighted out and now is in a medically induced coma. I haven’t seen it yet, need to go down there with some buddies to scope it.

Here is a video of it. The locals are hitting it Thursdays at 5 pm if you wanna be out there with spotters.

[SchralphMacchio]

Oh yeah, also Oakridge is on fire now. Bunch of new starts from lightning this past Tuesday and now some of them are 10-40 acres, including one on the north boundary of Alpine trail. I’m guessing the race this weekend is gonna be canceled and the trail closed north of Windy pass for a while. Salmon Creek also has a fire.

[dfinn]

Definitely very smokey this morning. I feel like I got pretty lucky this past week. The smoke wasn’t bad at all, no one broke into my truck and I caught a vertically challenged guy having sex with a very large woman just off the road down by crawfish. No shortage of interesting people around these parts.

[Huskier]

Pugetopolis riders: Is there some kind of plan for maintenance @ Raging River? It's been beaten to absolute shit. First time out this year. It want great last year but Poppin to "Flow state" now bordering on full rock garden status due to rider volume. New Cedar Creek DH also full of holes already. Why we can't have nice things...

[jacob_dbu]

Pugetopolis riders: Is there some kind of plan for maintenance @ Raging River? It's been beaten to absolute shit. First time out this year. It want great last year but Poppin to "Flow state" now bordering on full rock garden status due to rider volume. New Cedar Creek DH also full of holes already. Why we can't have nice things...

No idea, but reach out to Evergreen and find out / offer a hand. They’re very open to gung-ho volunteers doing trail work.

[ridinshockgun]

Pugetopolis riders: Is there some kind of plan for maintenance @ Raging River? It's been beaten to absolute shit. First time out this year. It want great last year but Poppin to "Flow state" now bordering on full rock garden status due to rider volume. New Cedar Creek DH also full of holes already. Why we can't have nice things...

Tiger is holding up much, much better FWIW if you need a close to town fix. CCDH seems prone to bomb holes and brake bumps in the summer moreso than other trails. No Service and Invictus usually stay in much better shape.

Can't really fix dirt issues right now but I'm sure they'll be all over it this fall.

[jono]

The Oakridge discussion is a nice reminder of how much a few trails (and Evergreen East) have done to clean up some former dump sites around here. Beacon Hill looks like an environmental triumph. Used to be graffiti and broken glass in every walkable spot.

[muted reborn]

I caught a vertically challenged guy having sex with a very large woman just off the road down by crawfish.

yep, that's a great place to have sex.