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Over the river and through the woods, it's about 70 miles and all downhill from Corvallis to the Pacific Ocean -- except for the mountains! Ups and downs add another three miles -- about 15,000 vertical feet -- to the route that's been talked about as a recreational trail since the 1970s. For 15 years, Oregon mountain bike racers welcomed spring with the Corvallis Mountain Bike Club's Mudslinger: 14, 21 or 26 miles with as much as a mile of ups and downs along the fire roads and trails of OSU's McForest. Steve Larsen won the 2000 race in 1:53:15, leading a field of 269 riders. As recently as 1998, cyclists raced up Marys Peak, grinding granny gears on the 9.4-mile-long road connecting Highway 34 with the summit parking lot. Michael Rosenberg's 1996 effort of 40 minutes 8 seconds is still the time to beat for the 3,000-foot climb. Jessica Cortell holds the women's record of 49 minutes 53 seconds. The Mid-Valley Bicycle Club is planning a new Marys Peak Hill Climb for July 4, 2001. The Siuslaw National Forest was one of 21 created by President Theodore Roosevelt's executive orders when he sidestepped a Congressional attempt to limit his ability to create and enlarge parks and forests. The Siuslaw National Forest is one of 15 National Forests Roosevelt created in Oregon by executive order between March 1, 1907 and February 13, 1909. America's conservation President set aside more than 230 million acres of land as 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reservations, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments and 24 reclamation projects. The 630,395-acre Siuslaw combined the Tillamook Forest Reserve and acreage from the Umpqua Forest Reserve. Today, the U.S. Forest Service manages 15,658,000 acres in 13 Oregon National Forests. One of Roosevelt's first executive orders established Crater Lake National Park in 1902. For more than half a century the Siuslaw was managed for multiple-use and a sustainable timber harvest. In the 1980s, foresters calculated the potential annual timber harvest at 453 million board feet: ". . . enough wood to build more than 30,000 three-bedroom homes." Harvests of as much as 350 million board feet produced $40 million budgets, a forest staff numbering nearly 500 and the construction of a 2,500-mile network of forest roads throughout the region. But the change to "ecosystem management" in the 1990s, coupled with northern spotted owl and other environmental protections caused the timber industry to collapse. In 1994, logging in federal forests earned a profit of $122 million from the harvest of 4.8 billion board feet nationally. Four years later, only 1.2 billion board feet were cut and the forest service lost $126 million in fiscal 1998, the last year for which records are available. With the Roadless Area Conservation Rule President Clinton banned road construction and new logging on 58.5 million acres of national forest land in 39 states, about 31 percent of all National Forests. Oregon's 13 National Forests cover about one-fourth of the state, some 15.6 million acres. Inventoried Roadless Areas numbered nearly 2 million acres. Only 34,000 roadless acres were recommended for the road and logging ban within the Siuslaw National Forest. They all border the 5,800 acre Drift Creek Wilderness northeast of Waldport which was established in 1984. "The Roadless Area Conservation Rule of January 12, 2001, is presently the subject of eight lawsuits involving seven states, in six federal districts, and four federal circuits. The District Court of Idaho has preliminarily enjoined implementation of the rule. That decision is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. At this point, it appears that the roadless rule may be embroiled in legal controversy and process for a very long time, with an ultimate outcome that is far from certain.Now, the Siuslaw National Forest only maintains about 800 miles of its backcountry roads. More than 1,700 miles of roads are overgrown or closed to vehicles by dirt berms, trenches or waterbars. Many of them are passable by mountain bike along a route like the one described below. It's an epic journey, over the river and through the woods and up and down and up and down the ridges and hills from Corvallis to the sea. Sometimes the getting there is more important than the there, there, unless it's the Pacific Ocean. "There is one colsolation a man has in living in Corvallis -- he can live to be an old man for he will never die of excitement. There is not enough of it here to ever be of any danger to a man's constitution." |
 City of Corvallis Corvallis Parks And Recreation Corvallis Convention & Visitors Bureau Benton County Benton County Historical Museum City of Waldport Waldport Chamber of Commerce Lincoln County  Benton County ARES Corvallis Mountain Rescue Unit Mary's Peak Search & Rescue  AmericanTrails.org The Bicycle Museum of America The Bicycle Paper Bicycle Transportation Alliance Bicycling Magazine Bike Friday The Bike Gallery Bike Magazine  Bike Magazine published this guide to IMBA's 2001 Epic Rides in the July 2001 issue, including Oregon's classic, 79-mile North Umpqua Trail. Bike N' Hike The Bike Shop BikeE BikeKraft BikePAC of Oregon, Inc. BikeRide.com Bikes Belong Coalition, Ltd. Blackberry bRamble BlueRibbon Coalition Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Articles Burley Design Cooperative Cascade Cream Puff Center for Appropriate Transport Central Oregon Trail Alliance Coghead Corner Cog Wild Bicycle Tours Co-Motion Cycles Coos Regional Trails Partnership Corvallis Cyclery Corvallis Mountain Bike Club Covered Bridge Tour Cycle Oregon 2001 Cycling News Cyclotopia Dictionary of Mountain Bike Slang Dirt Rag Magazine DirtWorld.com Disciples of Dirt Discover Bicycles Eugene, City of Bicycles! Fat Tire Farm FTF Cyclocross Crusade Gateway Bicycles Get A Grip Bicycles Greater Eugene Area Riders Gresham Bicycle Gorge Games Hutch's Bicycles International Human Powered Vehicle Assn.  More than 1,700 miles of Siuslaw National Forest roads have been closed to vehicles since the 1980s. These sections of SNF maps show the "South Tract" area in 1982 and 1996 in one-mile squares. SNF 1982 Map Section SNF 1995 Road Map Section SNF 1996 Map Section  "New research suggests that mountain bikes and boots leave equal wear and tear on trails." by Michael Lanza, Appalachian Mountain Club Outdoors Magazine, April 2001 "Hey (Hey!) You (You!), Get Off of My Trail!" by Jill Dantz, Outside Magazine, August 1999 Mountain Bikes: Biophysical Impacts, Social Interactions and Sustainable Trail Management by Alan Wayne Bjorkman, Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at North Park University, Chicago, Illinois Off-Road Impacts of Mountain Bikes by Gordon R. Cessford, Department of Conservation, New Zealand, August 1995 Sierra Club Conservation Policies: Off Road Use of Bicycles IMBA RULES OF THE TRAIL 1. Ride on open trails only. 2. Leave no trace. 3. Control your bicycle. 4. Always yield the trail. 5. Never scare animals. 6. Plan ahead. International Mountain Bicycling Association International Police Mountain Bike Association Kissler's Cyclery Land Shark League of American Bicylists McGillicuddy's Outpost Merry Cranksters Mountain Bike Club  Mid-Valley Bicycle Club Millenium Trails Mt. Hood Ski Bowl Mountain Bike Magazine Mountain Bike Action Magazine Mountain Biking Magazine mtbREVIEW.com Mountainbike Militiamen Movement National Bicycle History Archive of America National Center for Bicycling & Walking National Off-Highway Vehicle Council National Off-Road Bicycling Association Newport High School Mountain Bike Club NW Velo Cycling Team  The bicycle did more to change American society, business and culture and any other invention of the 19th century. Use this link to learn more about "scorchers," kyphosis bicyclistarum and turn-of-the-century Oregon. The LAW in this case was the League of American Wheelmen, now the League of American Bicylists. 19th Century Bicycle News The Bicycle & The West Oregon Adventures Oregon Bicycle Statutes (ORS 814.400) ODOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Oregon Bicycle Racing Association Oregon Coast Mountain Biking Camps Oregon Cycling Magazine OregonHiking.com OregonLive.com - Cycling Oregon Equestrian Trails, Inc. OET - Mid-Valley Chapter Oregon Motorcycle Riders Association Oregon Parks & Recreation Department Oregon State University College of Forestry Oregon State University Cycling Club OSU McDonald - Dunn Research Forest Oregon State University Mountaineering Club Oregon State University Triathlon Club Pathfinders Paul's Bicycle Way of Life Peak Sports  Albert Einstein discovered protosingletrack in Santa Barbara, California on Feb. 6, 1933. Photograph courtesy of The Archives, California Institute of Technology. Use this link to discover the Science of Cycling at San Francisco's Exploratorium in the Palace of Fine Arts. Pedaling History Bicycle Museum City of Portland Bicycle Resources Portland United Mountain Pedalers Portland Wheelmen Touring Club Race Across Oregon Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Reach the Beach Revolutions River City Bicycles Rogue Valley Cycle Sport Salem Bicycle Club Santiam Slow Spokes Bicycle Club Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic Scenic Cycling Adventures Scott's Cycle & Fitness Sellwood Cycle Repair Sims Cycle & Fitness Siskiyou Cyclery Siskiyou Velo Southern Oregon Mountain Bike Association Sports, Etc. Summit to Surf Summit Sports Surf & Turf Challenge Swanson, Thomas & Coon: Bicycle Law Team Northwest Tandemonium Team Oregon Timberline Adventures Tour de Blast Tour of Willamette Tread Lightly! Ultra-Marathon Cycling Association United Bicycle Institute University of Oregon Cycling Team University of Oregon Ducks Cycling USA Cycling Velo News Magazine VeloLaw.com Women's Association of Mountainbikers The Yankee Peddler Georgia-Pacific Corporation Oregon Forest Industries Council Oregon Forest Resources Institute Plum Creek Timber Company Starker Forests The Timber Company Weyerhaeuser Willamette Industries, Inc. Georgia-Pacific Corporation's Timber Company completed its merger with the Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Company on Oct. 8, 2001. Plum Creek is now the largest private timberland owner in the United States with more than 7.8 million acres of timberlands located in 19 states. This merger affects the "South Tract" and other lands along the proposed c2sea trail between Harlan and Toledo. The company owns 287,000 acres of forest lands in Oregon.  Proposed c2seaTRAIL detail: c2seaTRAIL: Philomath - Harlan c2seaTRAIL: Marys Peak Option c2seaTRAIL: Harlan - Bayview Cycling Marys Peak Trails Siuslaw National Forest 4077 S.W. Research Way P.O. Box 1148 Corvallis, OR 97339 TEL: (541) 750-7000 Siuslaw National Forest Waldport Ranger District 1094 S.W. Pacific Highway Waldport, OR 97394 TEL: (541) 563-3211 Siuslaw National Forest Mapleton Ranger District 4480 Highway 101, Bldg G Florence, OR 97439 TEL: (541) 902-8526 USFS Outdoor Safety USFS Roadless Areas National Weather Service Oregon Climate Service Oregon Fire Weather Forecasts Bureau of Land Management BLM Off-Highway Vehicle Strategy  "Poison oak and poison ivy can grow as shrubs, vines, or trees. In the winter, the leafless branches of poison oak or poison ivy still hold the harmful oils." -- OSU Extension American Academy of Dermatology Benadryl Spray FAQ EnviroDerm Ivy Block FAQ Dermik Psorcon FAQ Extreme Mountain Biking First Aid for Poison Ivy GORP: Poison Oak Life-Assist, Inc. Nature's Revenge OSU Extension: Poison Oak OSU: Poison Oak and Poison Ivy OutdoorPlaces.com: Poison Oak Poison Oak FAQ Poison Ivy, Oak & Sumac Poison Oak by Armstrong and Epstein  Fresh Coast Range cougar track © 1998 Kim A. Cabrera from Mountain Lion (Cougar) OSU McForest Cougar Encounter Tips Safe Travel in Mountain Lion Country Mountain Lion (Cougar) Mountain Lion "WARNING!" Desert USA - Mountain Lion Felis concolor  "Although the Willamette Valley is famous for its wet winters, surprisingly it is home to more snakes than anywhere else in the United States outside of Florida and the Southwest." -- Oregon Public Broadcasting: "Oregon Field Guide to Willamette Valley Snakes" Reptiles & Amphibians of Oregon Desert USA - Rattlesnakes Treating and Preventing Venomous Bites Snakebite Treatment Protocols First Aid for Rattlesnake Bites Western Rattlesnakes are found east of the Willamette River in the southern Willamette Valley, in southwest Oregon and in the high deserts east of the Cascades. CDC - Cryptosporidiosis CDC - Giardiasis  Copyright © 2001 Dennis Cowals All rights reserved. | ||||
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Mile 0.0 9.7 17.5 23.4 26.3 27.7 34.0 39.0 43.0 46.3 58.0 60.0 64.0 65.0 66.2 68.6 70.0 |
Location Corvallis - Willamette Park - START Junction US 20 / Woods Creek Road Knights of Pythias Cabin Checkpoint (CP) Sugarbowl Road / County 618 / FS 30 CP Harlan CP + Repairs & EMS Junction County 618 / FS 3109 Junction FS 3109 / FS 1000 (CP) Bohannan Ranch CP + Repairs & EMS Junction FS 1000 / FS 31 (CP) Junction FS 31 / FS 50 (CP) Junction FS 50 / County 702 (CP) County 702 / Bayview (CP) US 101 - Alsea Bay Bridge Siuslaw National Forest Ranger Station - Waldport Governor Patterson State Park Beachside State Park SNF Tillicum Beach Campground - FINISH |
Elev. 224 422 1669 514 319 223 1769 793 844 802 276 20 20 20 0 0 0 | |||
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Route, distances and elevations are approximate. Access is subject to approval by private landowners including Starker Forests, Inc. and the Plum Creek Timber Company. Georgia-Pacific Corporation's Timber Company completed its merger with the Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Company on Oct. 8, 2001. Plum Creek is now the largest private timberland owner in the United States with more than 7.8 million acres of timberlands in 19 states. This merger affects the "South Tract" and other lands along the proposed c2seaTRAIL between Harlan and Toledo. The company owns approximately 287,000 acres of forest lands in Oregon. | |||||
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