Max Morales Interview
Conan Thai's Grand Depart
July 2021 brought both the first-ever Oregon Timber Trail Grand Depart and the (now infamous) Bootleg fire. Riders converged on Lakeview, OR where anxious riders met each other, the mayor barbequed. The ride is now history. What can you say about summer bikepacking in the American West? Be prepared to improvise, change plans, and bring an N95. Despite all of this, one rider (and photographer, Conan Thai returned with a stunning set of images that captured the essence of this race-not-a-race. We wanted to get to know Conan a bit better and hear a bit more about his process. Anyone that wants to capture their own adventures will appreciate what Conan accomplished during this Grand Depart.
OTTA hiring Executive Director
A sense of purpose on trail
When I joined the OTTA board, I had a very romantic view of what supporting the development of this state-wide trail meant. I thought it came with muddy moments on the trail, flagging a future trail, and making new friends with a similar vision. There are plenty of those moments, to be sure, fortified around a campfire but there are also 2-hour Zoom meetings once per month and additional committee Zoom meetings that are far from touching a trail but are important nonetheless. Sometimes it doesn't feel impactful, it feels like a second job. There are heated moments that reveal opportunities for personal and organizational growth and truly joyful moments that can't be met with an in-person hug. All part of living in the time of pandemic and all part of working closely with people across the state.
Paisley Oregon and the Triumphant Return
I first came to the PNW 1977 hitchhiking from Massachusetts as a college student with a copy of “On the Road” in my backpack. On this trip, I decided Oregon was where I wanted to live when I grew up and left the East Coast. In 1979, after graduating from Mount Holyoke College, my boyfriend and I hiked for ten weeks on the Pacific Crest Trail. We took it slow, immersed in the natural beauty of the Cascades, starting in Canada and petering out in the cold rain at Mt. Hood. I made Oregon my home, and the Cascades my playground.
2021 Year End Review
2021 was quite a year for us all, but luckily, we got back to life on the trail. We did seven trail stewardship events, including breaking ground on the Fugrass connector, Winter Rim reroute and made huge strides with the 3-year Watson Fire Rehab project. In April we were proud to offer our first ever BIPOC scholarship, where we offered five $1000 scholarships. July brought the first-ever Grand Depart, while abbreviated due to fire closures, and cut short because of the growing Bootleg fire.
Kurt Refsnider AZTR300 Preparation
Kurt Refsnider is one of the most experienced and fastest bikepack racers and in many ways has shaped the pointy end of the sport. But we’re not just fans because he’s fast, we’re also interested because he co-founded Bikepacking Roots with Kait Boyle in 2017 and works as a climate and land activist. He was a former geology professor at Prescott College. He started a geology curriculum incorporating bikepacking trips! Now that’s a class we’d like to take!
Get to know: Paul Thomasberg
This year at the Watson Fire rehab trail stewardship event, we were lucky enough to have former racer, mountain bike hall of famer, trail builder Paul Thomasberg drop by for a day of building and learning. Paul was in the area to begin work on the Winter Rim reroute, and being the kinetic ball of energy and ideas that he is, he couldn’t resist a bonus day of trail work. We reached out to Paul to learn more about his history and get an update on his Winter Rim work.
Suggestions for incorporating kids in trail work
The trails we ride are built and maintained by real people, not trail fairies. When we join trail work parties, such as the Oregon Timber Trails Stewardship events, it deepens our connection to place and to the community of riders who use the trails. As the child of parents who run a mountain bike tour and shuttle company, my daughter has been taken along on trail work parties since she was little. Sometimes she enjoys the work more than other times, but over the years we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t.
Finding New Lines: Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Sampey
Dr. Elizabeth Sampey is an explorer. She’s designed her life to be a balance between outdoor adventures and her professional life as a therapist and coach, teaching her clients how to balance mind, body, and spirit. She earned her doctorate in physical therapy in 2008. Not satisfied with the limitations of that modality, she kept pushing to find ways to heal holistically. Bikepackers will know her as the Arizona Trail Race 750 women’s record holder and Revel Bikes ambassador. While she’s relatively new to ultra bikepack racing, she's not new to human-powered adventure. She’s been pushing her limits with backcountry skiing, running, and mountain biking for her entire adult life. She’s done months-long multisport expeditions in places like Peru and Pakistan. She’s been able to apply all she’s learned in her adventuring and her path as a healer to her own life with a unique sense of curiosity and humility that we find inspiring. We sat down with Dr. Sampey recently to learn more about her approach.
Trial by Fire
If anyone can put you at ease as a passenger in a rattling camper van descending overgrown 4x4 roads, it’s Paul Thomasberg. A natural storyteller with a surfer’s drawl, he delivered a highlight reel of his decades-long mountain biking career as he navigated around potholes, through mud, and across gravel washboards.
“One of my strengths as a racer was riding blind lines,” he said. “I was always good at that.”
Here, on rough roads in a remote corner of the Fremont-Winema National Forest, his well-honed reaction times were proving useful in getting us to the trailhead in one piece, as well.
Thomasberg—mountain bike Hall of Famer, former pro racer, and prolific trail builder—wasn’t the last person I expected to meet when I signed on for a weekend of volunteer trail work, but he was definitely closer to last than first on the list. Volunteerism doesn’t usually mean meeting industry pros and world-class athletes. But I was quickly learning that trail work on the Oregon Timber Trail comes with its own set of rules.
Garbanzo Powerblasters: Ron Lewis Recipe
For fans of Dustin Klein’s EBD YouTube page, where Ron and Dustin took on the Oregon Timber Trail's newest published route “Stiletsi & the White Crane,” a Mt. Hood tier loop . In Dustin’s videos, there’s always a snack break. Anyone that spends hours on the bike the way gravel riders and bikepackers do know the importance of good homemade ride food, which is perhaps why Dustin’s snack breaks resonate with us. So when at 2:22 Ron breaks out his homemade Garbanzo Power Cookies, our interest was piqued. Garbanzo cookies? Can those be good?
Stiletsi and the White Crane: Ron Lewis Rundown
The 143 mile, 14,500 foot circuit roughly follows Wasco and Wishram trade routes used by two namesake native chiefs to guide John C. Fremont's 1842 expedition through the territory. Sections of the route were already familiar to me, but I had never experienced them all together, let alone from a multi-day perspective. From a distance, the weather looked stable. We were two months into a historic drought. So when the forecast shifted to rain over our entire first day, I was a bit anxious.
What could go wrong?
Thank you, Gabe
Since 2015, when the Oregon Timber Trail was just a sketched line on a map, a concept to bring long-distance backcountry mountain biking to Oregon, Gabe Tiller has been there.
With his thirst for adventure and breathtaking photos, he crafted a story, a promise that with a dream and a bit of teamwork, we could all take the path less traveled, from one rural town to the next, The OTT was born. Gabe has been one of the key visionaries, along with Harry Daalgard and Chris Bernhart, to develop the specific alignment of the Timber Trail.
The genius of the trail is that it linked existing segments of singletrack. The trio interfaced with over one hundred stakeholders from the US Forest Service, dozens of trail groups, the conservation community, tourism representatives, elected officials, and local trail experts to see if the concept would fly. And fly it did.
Since 2018, Gabe has served as Executive Director of the OTTA. He has been the voice of the Timber Trail, the man behind the posts, the graphic design, the maps, and this past year he headed up all the trail work parties. If you joined us for a work party, surely you worked side by side with Gabe at the Watson Fire Rehabilitation. Gabe could be found staking trail alignment for crews to dig in, ready with a Silky to cut a snag.
Gabe will step down as executive director and will continue his planning work with Travel Oregon while developing the continuation of the Oregon Timber Trail with the Orogenesis Collective and doing select creative work with the OTTA in the future. Gabe will always be a spiritual founder of the Timber Trail and he'll always be a part of the project. Thank you for everything, Gabe. We are truly grateful for your hard work behind the camera, keyboard, and on trail.
Between wildfires and climate change, it has not been an easy year for the trail. The Timber Trail needs extensive work every year and relies heavily on your donations and volunteer trail work. We have a full calendar of trail work events on all four tiers coming up next year. Please sign up and join us! Out on the trail, whether riding or digging, is where the OTT experience really comes alive.
Our board is eleven members strong - all passionate mountain bikers and lovers of the outdoors who carry the torch for the OTT and its mission. With the overwhelming support of our community, partners, sponsors, and volunteers, the Oregon Timber Trail Alliance is now stronger than ever. As we enter our next chapter, our mission remains the same; The Oregon Timber Trail Alliance is dedicated to stewardship, education, community, and quality trail experiences throughout the Oregon Timber Trail corridor.
The Oregon Timber Trail links Oregon's communities and backcountry landscapes through profound mountain biking experiences. We know that challenging and inspiring outdoor recreation is a great vector for personal growth and wellbeing, as well as an enormous driver for the struggling economies of Oregon’s rural communities. We strive to make these experiences accessible to everyone and are proud to welcome riders from all over the world and all walks of life.
Introducing Stiletsi and the White Crane: Hood Tier Gorge Loop
Tie the mighty Columbia River to Mt. Hood through Wasco County’s hill country and the verdant Hood River Valley along ribbons of backcountry singletrack. The mountain, the forest, the prairie, and the river all converge here, creating a varied splendor of geology, flora, fauna, and many layers of human history.
OTT700 Grand Depart - Photo Gallery
Watson Fire Rehab Continued - Recap and Gallery
Fugrass Stewardship Campout - Recap & Gallery
Hood Tier - Rainy Lake Recap & Gallery
This little-known but historic route connects Whatum Lake near Mt Hood to the legendary Post Canyon trail system via Waucoma Ridge. We spent the day logging, brushing, and repairing tread getting the trail ready for our upcoming Gorge Loop.
Sisters Stewardship Campout - Recap & Gallery
Back on the dry side of the Cascades we got the pleasant surprise of a nice dirt soaking for our trail work. We partnered with Sisters Trails Alliance to rework a set of 11 switchbacks on Black Butte and attempt to reclaim the Two Lakes trail from its voracious ceanothus jungle, a result of the 2003 B&B Complex wildfire.