Proposals to grow two of Bend, Oregon’s winter riding spots — Cline Butte and Horse Ridge — are on land managers’ desks and are currently being worked on. While Horse Ridge’s public comment period has wrapped and now awaits NEPA, Cline Butte has already seen new trails built. These trail systems are located primarily on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land and have gone relatively unregulated for years.
Many Bend locals are excited about the prospect of new trails. However, others worry about what “official” involvement could mean for existing trails and e-bike access.
Cline Butte: Existing trails
Cline Butte rises approximately 800 feet above the high desert landscape about ten miles north of Bend. This small network of trails is part of a larger riding zone called the Cline Butte Recreation Area (CBRA), which includes the nearby Maston and Cascade View trailheads.
“So the goal is to have Maston be green, Cascade View is blue with rock tech, and Cline will be more advanced with steep descents,” Alex Brieger, Trails Program Director for Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA), told us. Cline and the other two trailheads are managed by COTA’s Redmond Chapter.
Cline Butte is known for three major descents — DH 1, 2, and 3. The three DH trails drop from the top of Cline and are chunky, steep, and technical, easily falling into their black and double-black ratings.
A fourth, less technical descent known as “The Saddle” drops from roughly halfway up the Butte and leans toward the advanced side of intermediate. The beginning is fast, loose, and off-camber with decent exposure. The second half is more technical, with loose gravel corners and optional rock drops or rolls.
New trails have already been built at Cline Butte.
Working with the BLM, COTA proposed an additional 12.1 miles of singletrack in the CBRA, with some trails already completed on Cline Butte. These additions to Cline filled much-needed progression gaps.
“The goal is to make everything manageable for people to ride,” Brieger told us. “We have two black trails and a double black trail, so we’re looking at where is the need.” COTA identified this need as intermediate descending from Cline’s summit.
COTA added two blue trails: The Goat and Chainbreak. The Goat was an existing but not well-established trail scratched into the top quarter of Cline Butte. COTA officially adopted the trail, reworking its entrance and extending it to three-tenths of a mile down the Butte to the start of The Saddle. The Goat is more technical than Chainbreak, with two rock roll options near the top, followed by optional drops and fast corners. By combining these two trails (The Goat to The Saddle), riders now have a top-to-bottom intermediate descent from Cline Butte’s summit.
Chainbreak is nearly three-quarters of a mile long and descends over 500 feet down Cline. The trail is flowier, with steep switchbacks for practicing cornering skills. Chainbreak has a few technical sections, but they consist of mellower rock gardens rather than the steep rock rolls on other descents. It also provides another blue option to the bottom of Cline, as The Saddle is closed for several months of the year due to a nesting golden eagle.
Besides intermediate options, COTA recognized a need for a more direct climbing route on Cline. The current climb has riders pedaling a few miles on the Buttes XC trail to the back of Cline before grinding another mile up a service road. A more direct route is available on the front of the Butte but involves a grueling hike-a-bike up an old access road. This particularly steep road climb starts near the beginning of The Saddle.
“The section from The Saddle to the top of the road climb is heinous,” Brieger said. “The goal was to make a nice pedal-access trail that allows you to get to the summit.”
COTA added Return Policy, replacing the hike-a-bike road. Climbing 227 feet in over half a mile, COTA designed Return Policy to climb gradually. The trail has several tight switchbacks before getting somewhat technical at the top. Still, it maintains a manageable grade.
The CBRA plan also calls for a trailhead with multiple entry points, 20-30 vehicle spaces, and toilets. More trails are also in the works for Cline, including a climbing trail from the trailhead to the summit and an intermediate jump line.
More “official” involvement brings up concerns among locals.
A proposal at Horse Ridge could also drastically increase its number of trails. While the proposal isn’t nearly as far along as the CBRA plan, some locals are worried about more “official” involvement in both zones.
Cline Butte and Horse Ridge have long been riding zones where steeper and more technical trails were built — illegally. With these proposals on the table and trails already constructed, some worry that existing trails may lose features and technicality or be shut down altogether.
Many riders have voiced concerns on social media and online forums. In response to a COTA Instagram post about new trails at Cline Butte, commenters asked COTA not to “dumb down” the trails and to hire the “original builder.”
On a post about the proposal at Horse Ridge, another commenter wrote: “This worries me. Horse Ridge has flourished to this point. It would seem the community at large would like to preserve existing features and technical elements of the trail, I hope this is taken into account as BLM gets involved.”
Another would say: “Enjoy them while they last.”
All three DH trails at Cline were grandfathered in as they are, with no plan to change the nature or difficulty of any of the trails. That said, DH 3 will see a reroute to keep the bottom of the trail off private land. This won’t be a “dumbing down” of the trail but saving it for the future.
Regarding Horse Ridge, Brieger explained that all the current trails on the ground were included in the proposal with the features and level of difficulty they currently have. It will be up to the BLM to perform environmental assessments of the current trails and, ultimately, decide what will happen to them.
“There are changes that come with trails that are built illegally,” Brieger said. “[Trails] for you and your ten buddies are not sustainable for the 100 or 200 people per day you’re gonna see on those trails.”
Future e-bike access is not guaranteed.
The BLM will ultimately have to make a decision about e-bike access, another concern locals had. Unlike Cline, e-bikes are considered in the proposal at Horse Ridge. Brieger told us they weren’t proposed in the CBRA plan because it would have required a new environmental assessment. Like the Forest Service, the BLM designates trails as “motorized” and “non-motorized.” Currently, the trails at Cline Butte and Horse Ridge are both designated as non-motorized. It is also the BLM’s responsibility to enforce such designations, something they have not historically done.
However, we have seen an increase of trails opening to class 1 e-bikes, including a proposal for Bend’s westside trails, which is supported by COTA. In all cases, the land manager decides if any trails on Bend’s public land will allow e-bikes.
Regardless of “official” involvement that might worry some local riders, both Cline Butte and Horse Ridge are officially on BLM land. To leave things as they are – meaning unofficial and technically illegal — would mean risking losing mountain bike access altogether. For example, another user group could potentially approach the BLM with a proposal instead of mountain bikers. Brieger told us Horse Ridge backs up to an OHV park and a Wilderness area.
In fact, public access to Cline Butte was questionable only a few years ago when an application was put in to purchase 400 acres of surrounding land for a resort. Brieger explained that the new CBRA plan secured existing BLM land for public recreation, and they hope to secure the future of Horse Ridge as well.
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