Ambers Thornburgh, 72, fixes a cut fence that goes around his land and BLM land near Eagle Crest Resort last week. Thornburgh believes ATV riders cut the fence, and he has become increasingly frustrated as this continues to happen. “I’ve got other things to do besides rebuild fence behind these people,” the rancher says.

Fences that Ambers Thornburgh mended this spring were busted again as fall started in Central Oregon.

Likely snipped by bolt cutters, the fence’s barbed wire sags alongside a dirt trail etched by motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles through the sagebrush and juniper around Cline Buttes north of Bend. Nearby riders knocked down a gate to roll onto Thornburgh’s land.

Thornburgh, a 72-year-old rancher, said dealing with the reoccurring damage is tiresome.

“I’ve got other things to do besides rebuild fence behind these people,” Thornburgh said.

Federal officials say the Bureau of Land Management’s new Cline Buttes Recreation Area, with its designated trails and staging area, should remedy the problem.

But Thornburgh and neighbor Sage Dorsey, 54, whose land is also close to the buttes, aren’t so sure.

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” Dorsey said.

End of the ‘free-for-all’

Within a triangle of highways connecting Bend, Sisters and Redmond, the public land around Cline Buttes has been a magnet for people looking to drive off-road since the 1960s, said Matt Able, an off-highway vehicle specialist with the U.S. Forest Service who has been involved with the design of the recreation area.

“At this point there are no designated trails,” Able said. “It’s been a free-for-all.”

By June 2013, that should come to an end, he said.

Construction of a staging area — with a parking lot, restrooms and an information kiosk — is set to start at the end of October. Off-highway vehicle trail building will follow and continue through the winter.

In all, the trail system, which will also have separate hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking trails, will have 100 miles of trails for OHVs. Able said that will squelch the enticement for people to drive over the open range and onto private property.

“If you build a good-quality trail system, most people are going to stay on that trail system,” he said.

‘Lack of respect’

Given the history of free-roaming riding around Cline Buttes, Thornburgh and Dorsey are skeptical about whether the trail system will change the disregard some OHV drivers show toward private property.

Like Thornburgh, Dorsey said he regularly has to mend his fences and pick up gates, even ones marked with signs declaring private property and signaling no trespassing.

“It’s a lack of respect,” Dorsey said. “You don’t just break things down because they are in your way.”

Thornburgh and Dorsey said that for the plan to keep people on the trails, there will have to be an increase in law enforcement.

Able said there will be more patrols by rangers and Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies at the recreation area.

“So there will be somebody watching,” he said.

To make it easier for landowners like Thornburgh and Dorsey to report OHV riders they find on their property, Virginia-based Responsible Trails America is leading a nationwide effort to require registration numbers be displayed on OHVs. Like license plate numbers on cars, the OHV numbers would be large enough for people to see from a distance and report, said Randy Rasmussen, Western states organizer for Responsible Trails America in Corvallis.

He said the registration numbers would help eliminate the “rogue element” that would go off trail, and possibly onto private property, after the trail system is established.

Staying on the trails

Whether the plan works remains to be seen, said Jim Karn, a Bend man who volunteers with the Central Oregon Trail Alliance.

“I don’t think it will stop people immediately, and it may never stop people — but it is far and away the best solution,” he said. “If you don’t do something it will just continue.”

While he’s mostly been involved with the design of new mountain bike trails at Cline Buttes, Karn said he also rides an off-highway motorcycle.

Agreeing with Able, Karn said he thinks the trails will curb the OHV problems.

“Those will be more fun to ride on than just driving overland randomly,” he said.

He is sure Cline Buttes will draw more people coming there to recreate, be it on an OHV, mountain bike, horse or foot. Not only is the recreation area close to Bend, Sisters and Redmond, it also stays clear of snow much of the winter.

The mix of public and private land around the buttes is flat rangeland, Karn said, more open to exploration by OHVs than woods or lush valley lowlands.

“There are no natural boundaries here,” Dorsey said.

But there are fences.