Places to ride and camp in Oregon?
 

My better half and I had some plans fall through and now we have 5 days (Thurs-Monday) at the end of the month open up. We are located in northern Utah and are planning on driving in, camping, and riding. We are fairly new to riding and have CX bikes.

What places could some locals suggest for 5-20 mile easy-intermediate riding that you could take a CX on. Being part of or very close to camp area is preferred. She is looking for places to swim, I'm looking for scenic tree coverage. We are even open to going to several locations over the duration of the trip. I have been browsing on alltrails.com and a few seem interesting:

Silver Falls State Park Bike Path 4.3mi
Tamolitch Pool Trail - 4.6mi
Shellburg Falls Loop Trail - 6mi
Metolius River Trail - 12mi
McKenzie River Trail - 24mi (seems more intense?)

I'd appreciate any suggestions on these or other places.

Cheers,

Rob

Banks to Vernonia Rail to Trail is nice. Total trail is 21 miles one way, but there are plenty of trailheads to shorten that.

Hey Rob,

I'm not sure how technical you'd like your riding to be. Are you looking to ride single track on your bikes? Are you looking to stay off of highways?

I was thinking in terms of swimming and Suttle Lake came to mind. Scout lake is very close by and that is a fantastic lake for swimming. Suttle lake is also very close to Sisters which is a very cute smaller town done up old western style. There's a unpaved trail around the lake and the Suttle Tie trail links Suttle Lake to Black Butte Ranch (Private). Nearby is a side road to the Metolius River. Black Butte itself has a trail around it and there are countless gravel roads to explore. If you were feeling adventurous, You could ride from Suttle Lake to Big Lake using the Old Santiam Wagon Road. The road from Sisters to Dee Wright Observatory is also very scenic.

I've been told that you can ride from Silver Falls To Shelburn, but I don't know the way. There's a bike campground at Shelburn, above the falls.

Banks Vernonia Trail sounds like a good suggestion. Stub Stewart State Park is near. So is Scaponia, although it's primitive (no water and only pit toilets). Rode at least part of the trail back in '05 during Cycle Oregon and then stayed in Vernonia, which I remember being a nice little town.

The Stub Stewart/Banks-Vernonia Trail (about 30-ish miles NW of Portland) would probably be the most workable destination. The B-V trail is paved and tree lined, though not much in the way of swimming until you get down to Vernonia.

The big issue is timing. Sounds like you're talking about Labor Day Weekend. If so, most (if not all) of those parks are going to be full, at least in the reservations department. You might luck into a first-come/first-served spot for a night or so, but a full holiday weekend would be tough.

Now if you were bike camping instead of car camping, you would have more luck because of hiker/biker sites.

I did it last year. You can get between them via a series of dirt/gravel roads, a few of them pretty rough. Basically head west (towards Salem) on OR 214, then left on Lookout Mtn Road, which will be right after the park. Then right on Shellburg Road. Shellburg Falls is pretty nice, it's like the secret sister fall to the ones in Silver Falls. And you can walk under it!
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Thanks for the replies. We are new to cycling, I think we could do easy single track.

The Banks to Vernonia trail looks perfect. I didn't even realize that is over Labor Day weekend, Doh! I just checked the The Stub Stewart camp grounds and they are full up. Looks like my obliviousness may have thwarted my plans. I suppose I can look for some other grounds. We planned on showing up early Friday so maybe we can get into Scaponia, as it is first come first serve.

Fort Stevens Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department: Fort Stevens State Park is the far NW corner of Oregon, where the Columbia Meets the sea.

in addition to the casual paved trails in the park theres the road to the South Jetty.
and a loop around Young's Bay .

There are a few other campgrounds in the area, too. The city of Vernonia has Anderson Lake, Vernonia Lake, and Vernonia Airport, and there is also Big Eddy County Park about another 10 miles up 47 from Vernonia. It's still going to be tough no matter how you slice it. Hope you get lucky!

This is bike-able. 11.2 miles roundtrip, per Sullivan

Out in the beautiful O&C lands there is the Clay Creek campground http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recr...Clay_Creek.pdf

The campground isn't any great shakes, potable water and vault toilets, but the location is nice. It's right along the Siuslaw river. The roads are extremely low traffic and there are plenty of unpaved connectors if you want to get off the chipseal.

Here's a suggested ride: head downstream. After about six miles you reach a fork in the road at mp 10. Go left to ride up Esmonds creek. You can make a loop of 35 miles by turning left on the M-Line six miles up from the fork. Eight miles later, the M-line returns to pavement at the top of South Sister/Oxbow Rd. Turn left down Oxbow road, left again six miles later at Alma and return to camp.

Alternatively, there is a gravel connector from just a few miles upstream of the campground that can take you to the M-line. This would be fewer miles but likely more work. There's lots of other options, just check a map.

I ride this trail a couple times a year. Personally, I think it's boring. It's just a rail trail so there just isn't much to it. Stub Stewart is pretty nice though. Lots of trails that are CX bike friendly. Vernonia is where it ends and it's a nice little town. Lots of good places to eat. From Banks to Vernonia is a constant 2-3% climb for 21 miles, but what's cool is you pretty much can coast all the way back to Banks.