Wild East

The rise of Oregon’s newest singletrack frontier

THE SYMPHONY OF METAL PICKAXE HEADS STRIKING ROCKS echoes through the woods as we approach the trail crew at Mount Emily Recreation Area near La Grande, Oregon—a farming community of 11,000 known best for its small university and the railroad that bisects town.

Meeting the folks who build trails is pretty standard when reporting on a mountain bike destination—after all, they know the history of the land, what it took to get the trails built and can usually describe in detail every feature of every stretch of singletrack they’ve ever carefully carved into the land.

This is not that. Though these builders are as dedicated and determined as others who devote endless hours to honing their craft, unlike those others, these guys may never actually realize the satisfaction of pedaling on their own works of art.

“I made the joke earlier, ‘Oh, do we actually get to test the trail? Do we get to ride it to make sure it’s safe?’” says Ryan Nickel, a first-time trailbuilder, and one-time BMX racer who placed 5th in state as a teenager. “It’s hard work, but it’s better than being in the facility doing nothing. Really, it’s just time in there. I’d rather be doing something productive that people can use.”

Nickel and the others on this 10-man crew are inmates at nearby Powder River Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison that houses mostly drug and alcohol offenders. The builders, dressed in prison-issued blue T-shirts and jeans labeled with a bright orange Oregon Department of Corrections logo, are hand cutting a narrow dirt track into a steep, sun-baked, 35-degree slope that overlooks the valley.