BEND, Ore. (AP) - Anyone who has gone to climb at Smith Rock State Park or hike at Tumalo Falls on a warm, clear weekend knows well the popularity of the public lands.
They’re popular. Really popular. And busy.
The situation is the same on the slopes of South Sister, along the Deschutes River through Bend and at the trails in Shevlin Park. As Bend continues to grow - the city of Bend estimates population to be near 120,000 in 2030, up from the U.S. Census count of 81,000 in 2013 - the number of people going to the most popular places around Central Oregon will likely only increase.
That leaves public land managers wondering what to do about the coming surge of even more users and working to deal with the effects of the current popularity. While they don’t all track exact usage numbers - doing so takes money and time - officials with the agencies managing some of the most popular places in and around Bend say they are seeing more and more people.
Response to the increasing numbers ranges from a call for more volunteers to help take care of the lands to ongoing talks about the possibility of use restrictions or limits, although there currently are no specific proposals.
While more people using trails means more maintenance will likely be needed, the managers said a bigger issue comes from people blazing their own trails.
“It’s a constant battle to stave that off,” said Scott Brown, Smith Rock State Park manager.
Such routes have many names. Brown called them “user-created trails” or “rogue trails.” Chris Sabo, trails specialist with the Deschutes National Forest, called them “social trails.” Jim Figurski, landscape architect with the Bend Park & Recreation District, called them “desire lines.”
“That does more harm than the wear-and-tear on the existing trail,” Figurski said. “It is really hard to restore an area once someone has damaged it.”
The marks of increased use aren’t limited to trails in and near Bend. They can also be found at the bottom of the Deschutes River as it runs through the city, where the popularity of floating grows each summer.
“We are starting to see more garbage and it is just literally debris from people floating,” said Ryan Houston, executive director for the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council.
Smith Rock State Park
Like other popular places around Central Oregon, Smith Rock State Park near Terrebonne keeps drawing more and more visitors, said Scott Brown, park manager.
Centered around namesake Smith Rock, a climbing mecca, about half the park’s visitors come to climb, he said. Hikers, photographers, wildlife watchers, trail runners and mountain bikers contribute to the other half.
Over the last four years Smith Rock’s visitation went up about 5 percent per year, but Brown said this year it dramatically jumped 15 to 20 percent for day-users and campers.
“We are seeing larger groups on holiday weekends when weather is nice,” he said.
By the end of the year he expects the park to have had about 700,000 day-use visits and about 19,000 camping night visits, the metrics the park uses to count visitors. The increase in visitors this year likely comes from the park being marketed by Travel Oregon as one of The Seven Wonders of Oregon.
“That made a big difference,” Brown said.
He expects growth won’t be so dramatic next year, but does expect visits to the park to keep going up. More visitors will mean increased costs for running the park, like paying for more janitorial supplies, and more calls to volunteers to help handle the increased number of people on trails.
Brown suggests visitors come during the week and when weather isn’t perfect.
“They can avoid the crowds that way and still have a great experience,” he said.
Tumalo Falls
Beauty and accessibility combine to make Tumalo Falls, off Skyliners Road about 14 miles west of Bend, a popular spot for a quick visit or a day hike. The picturesque falls are close to the parking lot, which fills up fast on a busy day. People then park on the road leading up to Tumalo Falls, with the line of cars sometimes stretching for a quarter mile, Sabo said. He didn’t have exact numbers but said visitation at Tumalo Falls keeps going up.
While not a part of a focused campaign like Smith Rock State Park, Sabo said Tumalo Falls and other once lesser-known public places have become more popular due to publicity on social media, in guide books and word of mouth.
“There are very few places that are secret anymore,” Sabo said.
South Sister
The tallest of the Three Sisters, Central Oregon’s signature mountains, South Sister also happens to be the easiest to climb. A trail leads to the top of the 10,358-foot volcano.
The relative ease of the climb and a trail that starts about 29 miles west of Bend make South Sister an increasingly popular hike, Sabo said. For 15 years Sabo has tracked use on the mountain and he said he’s seen as many as 300 people reach the summit on a single day.
The increased popularity has left its mark on the mountain.
“Anyone can see that by looking at GoogleEarth,” he said.
Satellite images on GoogleEarth and Google Maps show a distinct line leading up the south face of South Sister. The more people head up the mountain, the wider that line grows as the trail has become a “hiker’s freeway,” Sabo said.
“I mean, it is as wide as 30 or 40 feet (in some sections),” he said.
As climbers of different paces look to pass each other, they walk off the main trail, widening the path and sometimes creating braided trails at congestion points.
The Deschutes National Forest requires climbers to fill out a self-issue wilderness permit before climbing South Sister, which is in the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, but doesn’t enforce a limit to how many people can make the climb on a given day. Other volcanoes around the Northwest, such as Mount St. Helens in Washington, are subject to a quota.
Someday South Sister may be as well, with the possibility discussed for decades, but for now Sabo said there are no immediate plans for climber limits.
Like Smith Rock, Sabo said people looking to go up South Sister with less company should avoid busy summertime holiday weekends. For people who are looking for solitude while heading outdoors he recommends going to the southern reaches of the Deschutes National Forest, like the Diamond Peak Wilderness near Crescent Lake Junction on Oregon Highway 58.
“Don’t be part of the crowd,” he said.
Deschutes River
As more and more people float the Deschutes River in Bend, the issue of litter has moved from along the riverbanks out into the river itself, said Houston, of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council. The Bend-based group leads restoration efforts on the Deschutes and its tributaries.
While the group hasn’t collected data on the number of people floating the river, Houston said there has been a noticeable increase in people on the water during summertime in the past decade since the park district finished building Farewell Bend and River Bend parks.
The annual cleanup of the river now involves scuba divers who pull trash from the depths of the Deschutes. This August the cleanup had double the amount of divers as previous cleanups and they reported finding more beer bottles and other trash than ever before, said Kolleen Yake, education director for the watershed council.
“They found quite a few wallets and cell phones and keys,” she said. “. Flip flops and shoes. And a GoPro.”
The long list of what the divers found also includes bicycles and large metal debris. While one can, bottle or pair of glasses wouldn’t be a problem, Houston said the accumulation of trash lowers the quality of the river.
He suggested people floating the river follow advice often given to people headed into the woods - pack it in, pack it out.
“They need to bring that (philosophy) to the river and to these somewhat wild places that are right here in our backyard,” he said.
Shevlin Park
On the western edge of Bend, 652-acre Shevlin Park is the largest park in the city. Regular visitors include dog walkers, runners and mountain bikers passing through to connect to nearby trails. The park also has Aspen Hall, a popular wedding and event spot.
“It is a very, very popular park,” said Figurski, the landscape architect with the park district. “. A lot of people love it and they use it heavily.”
The Park District this summer began the process of creating a new management plan for Shevlin Park. The last time the Park District crafted such a plan for Shevlin was in 1992.
An 18-person citizen committee, formed by the Park District, met for the first time last month and will meet again this month. The goal of the plan is to address and find ways to alleviate potential user conflicts at Shevlin Park as Bend continues to grow.
“People go there for all sorts of reasons,” Figurski said. “And on occasion they all end up there at the same time.”
Sharing the love
The pressure that increasing popularity puts on public lands isn’t unique to Bend, said Matt Shinderman, senior instructor and program lead for sustainability at Oregon State University-Cascades. Over the past two decades, people have been drawn to cities around America where outdoor recreation can be part of their daily lives.
The trend doesn’t show signs of stopping, so public land managers in and around Bend will have to contend with increasing visitors to trails, parks and other hot spots.
“It’s a very easy place to live and to recreate,” Shinderman said.
The people marketing Bend as a place to move to and visit often focus on the nearby recreation opportunities, he said. They don’t often talk about how the places where people go for recreation have an ecological value as well, being wilderness or other preserves for landscapes and wildlife.
Achieving a balance of recreation while maintaining ecosystems is not a trivial issue, Shinderman said.
Scott Silver, executive director for Wild Wilderness in Bend, agrees. His group advocates for the protection of wilderness and Silver seeks recreation away from crowds.
Having been in Bend since the 1980s, he’s seen the popularity of public lands grow exponentially.
“The outdoors used to be harder to access,” he said.
For people looking to get away from others when they go outdoors he recommended roaming out east of Bend, but didn’t want to reveal any of the places he frequents.
“You tell someone, and next thing you know, it’s gone,” he said.
___
The original story can be found on The Bulletin’s website: https://bit.ly/10MgqB9
___
Information from: The Bulletin, https://www.bendbulletin.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.