Andy Tullis / The BulletinSisters District Ranger Kristie Miller, third from right, talks to a group Tuesday about the potential bike path route between Sisters and Black Butte Ranch, during a tour of a portion of the proposed route, in Sisters.

SISTERS — Rainfall failed to douse the hot debate about a planned paved trail on the Deschutes National Forest linking Sisters and the Crossroads development.

Kristie Miller, district ranger for the Sisters Ranger District, led a field trip Tuesday, guiding about 45 people along the nearly mile-long route. Miller approved the plan last year but reopened it for public comment after hearing from Crossroads residents who said they’d been left out of the planning.

Not all Crossroads residents received scoping letters, and Miller has said she is trying to make up for the mistake.

“We are listening to you,” Miller she told people along for the rainy hike Tuesday morning.

Monday, Joanne Anttila, chairwoman of the Crossroads Property Owners Association, and other folks from the neighborhood showed Miller where they’d like to see the path — along state Highway 242 and connecting to the main road into the development.

The route Miller showed them in return Tuesday wound through the woods from the highway to a back edge of Crossroads. Anttila said her group doesn’t want to see the path go there.

“We are in support of a trail,” she said. “Just not this location.”

Changing the route would require a new environmental review of the project — which someone would have to pay for — and the project itself would cost more, contends Gary Guttormsen, chairman of the Sisters Trail Alliance. He would like to see the Forest Service stick with the plan approved last year, which the group had proposed among a series of new trails around Sisters.

“I think it would be a nice amenity for the community to have,” he said.

The environmental review for those trails cost about $25,000 in all, Guttormsen said.

The Sisters Ranger District is applying for a $2.8 million federal grant that would pay for the building of the path and an 8-mile path linking Black Butte Ranch and the Tollgate development to Sisters. Miller has yet to approve a plan for that path and reopened the comment window last week along with the Crossroads path. Both paths would be 10 feet wide, paved with asphalt and divided into two lanes of traffic. The paths would be for nonmotorized use. The motor ban would have an exception for motorized wheelchairs.

Miller said the purpose of the paths is to connect communities separated by national forest land to Sisters.

Guttormsen lives in Crossroads himself. There are nearly 200 properties in the development, Anttila said, which was built in the 1970s.

Reaction to the route Tuesday ranged from cheers for a great little hike to concerns about how close the final stretch passed by homes in the development.

“Actually I liked the trail until I realized how close it comes to my neighbors’ backyard,” said Evelyn Bellotti-Busch, 57, of Crossroads. She walked the route Tuesday in a yellow rain slicker accompanied by her 5-year-old Chihuahua, Peaches, who wore a pink doggie jacket.

While Peaches kept quiet, dogs in nearby yards were alarmed by the line of people passing through the trees. They put out a stream of barks as people for and against the route debated while standing where the path would end.

Some Crossroads residents are concerned about safety along the trail and wonder why the Forest Service would want to build a path leading to their isolated homes.

Brenda Hartford, 58, lives in Crossroads near where the path would end. She would rather see the path parallel the highway and lead to the main road into Crossroads, she said.

“I want to preserve my privacy,” she said. “That’s why I don’t live in a city.”

For now Miller said she is not going to pull her decision on the path from late last year, but she is looking at the alternate routes and listening to comments. Like Guttormsen, she said a change in plans would cost money, and she doesn’t know where she’d find the funds.

While she’d heard arguments on both sides of the debate before Tuesday, Miller said it was a productive walk in the woods.

“They got to share with each other and that’s as important as it is to share with me,” she said.

—Reporter: 541-617-7812; ddarling@bendbulletin.com.

To comment

The Sisters Ranger District is taking comment on planned paved paths between Sisters and the Crossroads development, as well as Sisters, the Tollgate development and Black Butte Ranch. Written comments should be dropped off at the district office at Pine Street and U.S. Highway 20 in Sisters, mailed to Kristie Miller, district ranger, P.O. Box 249, Sisters, OR 97759, faxed to 541-549-7746 or emailed to comments-pacificnorthwest-deschutes-sisters@fs.fed.us. Emails should have “Sisters Ranger District Paved Path projects” in the subject line. Oral comments can also be left by calling 541-549-7735 or by stopping by the district office.

To see documents related to the planned paths go to http://1.usa.gov/1d06Kau.