Motorcycle Riders Association Helps Keep Trails Open

The Motorcycle Riders Association (M.R.A.) has been helping the US Forest Service maintain trails in Southwest Oregon for over 40 years. Motorcycles are a great way to access trails while carrying tools, such as chain saws, McLeods (large rake/hoe), hand saws, and pruners. We can quickly get to trouble spots making maintenance much more efficient than on foot. MRA volunteers donated 550 hours of work in the past year (Oct 2022 to Sept 2023) to the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest.

MRA does a large amount of fallen tree removal, brush clearing, and drainage repair on the shared trails (open to motorcycles) in the Siskiyou Mountains and Wild Rivers Ranger Districts. Some of these trails are popular with hikers and mountain bikers as well as motorcyclists, such as the Stein Butte Trail, Boundary Trail, Little Grayback, Summit Lake, Cook and Green, New London, Carlton Pasture, and Charlie Buck, Taylor Creek, Briggs Creek, Greyback, O’Brien Creek, Sturgis, China Creek, and many other trails.

In 2022 the MRA, working with Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District, as part of the Applegate Watershed Restoration Project, rebuilt two sections of abandoned trails. The lower section of the Charlie Buck Trail and the Cinnabar Mountain Trail are now open to single track users. This rebuilding required a lot of tread work, some of it done by hiring a work crew, some by MRA volunteers. MRA members used a single track trail building machine to accomplish some of this work. Funding for this project was provided by a Yamaha Outdoor Access Grant acquired by the MRA. Their volunteers contributed over 200 hours of unpaid work to complete this undertaking.

MRA will continue volunteer work in 2024 to keep trails open. With the wildfires of the past ten years our work has become much more difficult and time consuming. Trails that are in burn areas require much more downed tree removal, tread repair, and brushing. The work of keeping trails open also allows them to be utilized by firefighters for accessing areas that would be otherwise difficult to reach.

Get Involved today to be a part of these important community efforts to keep our trails open and accessible.

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