 COHVOPS
Central Oregon OHV Volunteers
The Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and the Prineville BLM
have several hundred miles of trails between them and very few paid
employees to maintain, patrol and keep up all of the trails. As
a result, we have enlisted the help of many volunteers to keep your
trails and facilities in good condition.
Our volunteers work long, hard hours and receive little if any
compensation for what they do. The tasks our volunteers perform
are numerous and varied. Some are less enjoyable than others and
some can be downright disgusting! So, this page is an attempt to
show our appreciation for all of the hours they've spent helping
keep your trails rideable.
Central Oregon Motorcycle and ATV Club (COMAC) is the local OHV
club that provides most of our volunteers. They put on a poker run
at East Fort Rock trail system annually. They check to make sure
participants are legal and they groom the trails after the run is
over.
Sound testing before the Joker Poker Run
Work parties are used for major projects such as developing staging
areas, trailheads or play areas. The volunteers often install fencing
to protect resources, picnic tables for recreationists, cattle guards
along trails and kiosks for information. Such work parties are used
to hit a big project hard and get a lot of work done fast. Individual
volunteers and employees often follow up with more detail work and
finish what didn't get done in the party.
Building fence at the Four Corners Staging area
on the Millican Plateau
Installing picnic tables at Henderson Flat dispersed
campsites
Another example of a big group project is the shelter on the Edison
Butte trail. That shelter was built jointly by COMAC and the Moon
Country Snowmobile Club.
Some of the southern trails at East Fort Rock are very rocky. Last
summer we attempted to crush the rocks in order to smooth the trail
out and make it compact. While the crusher we used was very archaic
it proved that crushing rock does in fact make the trail better.
Volunteers helped operate the machine (excruciatingly tedious work).
Their work helped to prove usefulness of the machine and enabled
us to have a new and improved version built.
Crushing rocks on the lava flow - Trail 90.
Logout and trail grooming are two of our most common jobs that
we have individual or pairs of volunteers do is grooming the trails.
Logout is especially important to keeping riders on the trails and
protecting resources. Because of our sandy soil, our trails mogul
out very quickly. We have an assortment of trail drags that are
pulled behind quads to smooth out the trails and keep them in good
repair for riding. It is a slow and dusty job, but it must be done
to keep the trails enjoyable.
Grooming with the rock rake on the Green Mountain
Trail
From time to time we have booths at various shows and fairs. Often
we recruit volunteers to help staff the booths and talk with the
public about our trail systems. (Many times these volunteers are
spouses.) Setting up and tearing down booths takes a lot of time
and planning and manning the booths is very time consuming.
Show booth at Jefferson County Sportsman Show
In addition to all of these activities, we have regular volunteers
that pick up garbage and clean toilets weekly at Henderson Flat
and Rosland Recreation Site.
This family that has "adopted" the Henderson
Flat area. They keep it clean and neat for our riders.
Volunteers make our program viable. We appreciate all of the hard
work and the long hours that they put into our trails and facilities.
THANK YOU!!!!!
If any of these activities appeal to you and you would like to
volunteer in any of the OHV trail systems please contact us!!! You
can call the COHVOPS Program Manager at (541) 383-4791 or you can email
at vramming@fs.fed.us
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