Riding at Millican/East Fort Rock

[mrudy]

I've heard some conflicting reports regarding trail conditions at Millican and East Fort Rock areas near Bend, OR. Some posts on this page describe E. Fort Rock as being some awesome riding, while several others whine about the whoops, dust and rocks.

I am planning a riding trip to this region in the coming week and want to know (with no BS) what are the trails really like?

I stopped in at some of the riding areas last week and asked some of the riders parked at the trailhead what the conditions/trails were like and what trails they had ridden. I talked with several riders from different camps/groups. Many said the trails were great. They pointed on the map some fun sections and described conditions as dusty, but nothing about whooped out trails.

So no BS, just the facts. Thanks ?

[russhenry]

The blue and black trails are the best. Black #77 was awsome! The #80's,50's 40's and 70's were the best. 30's and 60's were very whooped out. I would recommend staging at South Ice Cave. The riding in the south was much better.

[rasskill]

East Fort Rock…. I just moved to Bend a few weeks ago and have ridden at East fort rock twice. In the last few weeks ½ of all the trails in the system were closed for a bow hunt competition (I think). As of Wednesday the 13th all trails are open, unfortunately I have not been able to get back out there since.

I was able to loop down trail 30 on the west side and up to trail 38 and back to road 25 staging area. This loop is extremely easy and fast. I didn’t run into any uncomfortable whoop sections, but there were some whoops.

I also ran a loop up 20 (which was closed for maintenance at the intersection of about 22). To 10 and back down to through 19 and 16. 20 north from camp II trailhead was extremely whooped out. It was fairly uncomfortable. The black trial 19 was laughable as was 16. I am not sure who ranks these trails by difficulty, maybe someone on a 4wheeler.

I was not able to check the remaining black trails (45, 71, 72, 81, 85, 76, and 77), but I am planning on doing that this weekend. Black trails are the only ones I was interested and the few I did get to were not very challenging.

As far as the west side of the trail system goes I found it to be flat and fast. Unfortunately, and unsafely I had to maintain a rather high speed in order to make it fun. Dust was considerable, but trail congestion was not an issue (knock on wood, you never know who will be screaming around the next corner on a 800lb 4wheeler).

I will go back there until I hit every trail in the system, but I don’t think it will be able to hold my interest indefinitely.

[mrudy]

rasskill: I sent you an email outlining our plans for this weekend/next week's riding. Thanks for the info on the trails. Hope to see you out there. Mike