Photos by Alandra Johnson / The BulletinWalking along an old canal, you can get peekaboo views of the Cascade Range.

As winter settles in across the High Desert, more and more mountain bikers, horseback riders, runners and hikers head east or north of Bend to find accessible trails.

Horse Butte and Horse Ridge, both southeast of Bend, and Smith Rock/Gray Butte and Maston, both near Redmond, are some of the most popular areas from November through April.

As snow blankets the trails west of Bend, those drier areas become more crowded, increasing the chances of encounters among different users. Now is a good time for a refresher regarding who has the right of way.

Simply put, bikers yield to everyone else, and equestrians yield to no one. Most mountain bikers know this — at least I hope so — but sometimes we need a reminder.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a Mountain Bike Trail Guide piece about Horse Butte, and shortly thereafter I received an email from a concerned equestrienne who lives in that area. In her email, Judi Tolboe recounted how she recently had been riding her horse with other riders along the Horse Butte trails when a mountain biker sped downhill and around a corner toward her, unaware that she was there.

“He wasn’t looking up and I had to holler at him,” Tolboe recalled when I followed up with her by phone. “He had earphones in, and he was looking down. He said, ‘I’ve never seen a horse here before, what do I do?’ I asked him to move up off the trail to give us room to pass. He said, ‘Well, can’t I just ride by?’ And he was quite nervous. The horses picked up on his nervousness and his brightly colored bike. They got really spooked by that guy.”

The cyclist eventually moved off to the side and Tolboe kept her horse under control. But horses can get easily spooked by bikers, or even by hikers with large backpacks. They can buck their rider off or kick others.

“Even though there are people on (the horses), something can scare them and we don’t have control of that,” Tolboe explained. “A lot of people could get hurt. Hills and corners are particularly dangerous. No matter how well-trained your horse is, he is still a living, breathing thing that is going to think on his own occasionally. If a bike scares him, he’s likely to rear up, and he can turn around and spin and kick the bicycle rider, or any number of things.”

When approaching a horseback rider, bikers should speak — but not shout — so the horse realizes they are people, then move off the trail several feet to let the horse and rider pass. Mountain bikers should also make a point to look out and ahead frequently to know what might be oncoming, and they should always inform those they encounter of how many riders might be behind them in their group. And earphones? Well, to me, they are just a bad idea when mountain biking anywhere.

Many residents of the Sundance Meadows neighborhood near Horse Butte frequently take their horses out for trail rides. Three horse-boarding facilities are also located in the area.

“There is a great deal of horses that go out there,” Tolboe said. “The more they see bikes, the more they will get used to them, but not if (the bikes) come charging at them.”

Fortunately, Tolboe’s experience with the wayward biker appears to be the exception, and not the rule. Woody Starr, chairman of the Central Oregon Trail Alliance, said it is well understood among local mountain bikers that the cyclists yield to all other trail users. He said he does not believe that conflict among different user groups on the trails is a problem. And, from what I have seen as a mountain biker, hiker and trail runner, I agree.

“In Central Oregon, we’re blessed to have lots of terrain, and lots of diverse trail experiences,” Starr said. “There’s a good attitude of sharing. Frankly, we’re working harder to make mountain bikers get along with each other. Those encounters (with equestrians) just are not negative encounters.”

COTA made a strong push this past year to promote friendliness on the trails with its “Trail Love” campaign, which advises descending bikers to stop for others and encourages all trail users to “look, listen and smile.” A video that shows proper trail etiquette is available at www.cotamtb.com under the “Trails” tab.

While areas such as Horse Butte and Smith Rock/Gray Butte have trails that mountain bikers, equestrians and hikers must share, other popular trail networks in Central Oregon offer different areas for different user groups.

For example, the Maston trail network, off of Cline Falls Highway between Tumalo and Redmond — a go-to location for wintertime mountain biking in Central Oregon — includes a parallel trail system designated entirely for equestrians and hikers.

“We call it separate but equal,” Starr said. “It’s a real well-thought-out, great partnership between COTA and the equestrian groups like the Oregon Equestrian Trails. Horses prefer softer, less rocky soil. Mountain bikers like more firm, hard-packed dirt with some rocks. It’s two different trail experiences.”

A similar parallel trail network is in place at Peterson Ridge near Sisters.

“Those examples are a great way to show that when you sit down and have a beer together, 99 percent of what people want to do out in the woods is the same thing — whether they’re riding a horse, or hiking, or trail running, or riding a mountain bike, we kind of share the same motivations,” Starr said. “Really, at the core of it, we agree on lots and lots of things.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318, mmorical@bendbulletin.com