Bend is surrounded by areas designated for off-highway vehicles.

There are eight areas within a hundred miles of town, and two more being built. Some riders say there are enough trails to keep them happy, while others say there aren’t enough of the kind of trails they want, said Matt Able, an off-highway vehicle specialist with the U.S. Forest Service.

“You hear the whole gamut,” he said. “… You find both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between.”

As debate about the trails continues, Able said one thing is clear — more and more off-highway vehicles will roll over this part of the state.

“We get people on a weekly basis that come from Washington, California, Idaho and beyond to ride these places,” he said. “… Central Oregon is (a) definite OHV destination.”

Where to ride

The Forest Service this year changed travel rules on land it manages around Central Oregon, banning cross-country travel and restricting riders to designated road systems. The shift could push more off-highway vehicle riders to the designated areas.

The BLM is also trying to stop off-road riding around the Cline Buttes, amid the triangle formed by highways 20, 97 and 126 between Sisters, Bend and Redmond. There, it’s building more than 100 miles of trails designated for off-highway vehicles, but stopping rambles over open range.

Nearby, Deschutes County is closing off 200 acres to off-highway vehicles, saying motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles were damaging habitat.

The changes might lead off-highway vehicle drivers to wonder where they can ride in Central Oregon. Able — a member of the unique Combined Off Highway Vehicle Operations team composed of Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Park and Recreation Department planners — says there are sill plenty of miles to ride here.

There are more than 600 miles of trail and growing, he said.

Trail technicalities

While there are hundred of miles of trails and thousands of forest roads, there still is a lack of technical trails for four-wheel-drive vehicles, said Patti Pyland, a member of the trail development committee for the Deschutes County 4-Wheelers. Trails are divided into three classes — all-terrain vehicles, full-size four-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles.

Of those classes, the full-size four-wheel drive vehicles like Jeeps have the least amount of trail to ride, she said. There are about 20 miles of trail in Central Oregon that offer the type of rock-topping, log-crossing trails the club’s members are looking to challenge, she said. The response they hear from their critics is they could go drive forest roads.

“We don’t want to drive down a Forest Service road,” Pyland said. “A Prius can go down a Forest Service road.”

While not looking for a challenging climb like Pyland, Randy Drake, state director of the Pacific Northwest 4 Wheel Drive Association, isn’t satisfied with the trails around Central Oregon either.

The trails are fast and flat, he said, leaving a void for off-highway vehicle riders looking for a slower roll through the woods.

“If you want to grab your wife and three kids and go on a quiet ride on a trail system,” Drake said, “it doesn’t exist.”

While there are off-highway vehicle areas in nearly every direction from Bend, snow cuts off access to many of them and forces activity to the Millican Valley and East Fort Rock OHV areas southeast of town, said Marvin Ohlde, president of the Central Oregon Motorcycle and ATV Club.

“We need more places to ride year-round,” he said.

Like Pyland and Drake, he said off-highway vehicle riders aren’t satisfied with Forest Service roads.

“Yes we want more trails,” he said.

The off-highway ahead

Off-highway vehicle trail planners have heard concerns like those from Pyland, Drake and Ohlde before.

“They want more and more and more,” said Able, the Forest Service planner.

He’s also heard the calls from riders for technical trails to test their machines.

“They want big rocks, steep climbs,” he said.

Such terrain is often on sensitive land already designated for protection, Able said.

Planners with the Combined Off Highway Vehicle Operations team do listen to user groups when designing and building off-highway vehicle areas, he said.

“We do everything we can for OHV users,” he said.

Those groups should be happy with what they have, said Randy Rasmussen, Western states organizer for Responsible Trails America in Corvallis.

And, according to a 2008 survey of off-highway vehicle riders at areas around the Deschutes National Forest, many of them are satisfied with the trails available. Researchers from West Virginia and Pennsylvania State University compiled the report for the forest.

Given the number of off-highway vehicle areas around Central Oregon, Rasmussen said he wasn’t surprised by the result of the survey.

“For Oregon, this is where people come to play with their machines,” he said.

The team Able is now part of started in the mid-1990s during the development of the East Fort Rock OHV area, said Dick Dufourd, the former Forest Service OHV program manager who founded the Combined Off Highway Vehicle Operations team.

He now runs an off-highway vehicle trail consulting company, RecConnect, out of Bend that works on trails around the country and abroad.

He’s heard the calls from four-wheel drivers and other groups for more technical trails around Central Oregon, and he said those groups should keep telling the team what they want. The team is why there are so many off-highway vehicle opportunities around Central Oregon, he said.

“At least it is better now than it was,” Dufourd said.