Indian Ridge is a 5 mile trail with 3.5 miles of misery sandwiching 1.5 miles of awesome ridge riding. The 1.5 miles is almost so good that you forget about the other crap riding, but not really. So, it's probably not worth the time to ride this trail unless your goal is simply to conquer or you bring some tools to improve it.
The Forest Service does indicate Indian Ridge is a mountain bike trail (also featured here). There is another 1.3 miles of trail shown on the map, which is still visible on the side of the mountain but it is absolutely abandoned and barely even walkable. Right now the established trail simple ends at a viewpoint and you have to backtrack and then bail to the road.
The mountain bikers of Walla Walla should come up and hack the rest of this trail out again because Indian Ridge has some promise as a downhill trail since it can easily be shuttled on Tiger Canyon Rd. (Road 65) which parallels the trail for most of it. Rejuvenating the lower section (which comes out at the 2nd switchback driving up Road 65), combined with a little handwork on the upper section, would make a radical (or rad) downhill with a rugged scenic feel. I suppose someone with a DH bike and some skills would bomb the top section and enjoy it as is, but the rest of us should avoid the top section until some work is done.
The trail is not very far from the upper entrance to the North Fork Walla Walla River Trail which is major league compared to Indian Ridge's junior varsity status. Road 65 is a superhighway of a gravel road, so it provides a good climb back to your vehicle, assuming you couldn't dupe someone into dropping you off and shuttling you.
The eastern side of the ridge is the heavily guarded Mill Creek watershed for Walla Walla. Lest you forget, there are hundreds of signs on about every tree as you go down the trail. The signs serve as somewhat of a blaze for when you lose the trail. Even though the ground is in disrepair, trailwork has been done in the form of brush and limb cutting. The reason I know this is because the piles were placed right in the middle of the trail. No one seems to have taken a tool to the trail for quite some time.
Trail Notes
- As Road 65 crests with a view North into the Mill Creek Drainage, there is bermed-off road to the north that has signposts that indicate no trespassing (for the watershed). Ride through these signs and follow the road as it goes left. An alternate way to access this trailhead from the Tollgate side, is to take Kendall Skyline road, but a 4WD vehicle is needed and the road is very slow driving.
- 0.8 mi. The true trail starts as the road switches back at the very top of the ridge. Start looking for the feint trail there as you head north. Following the ridge is always a safe bet with this trail.
- 2.2 The trail literally drops down beside road 65. This is the beginning of the fun stuff so you may want to just start here.
- 3.1 A trail junction with a switchback that hops down to the road. This is where you will probably want to bail, but you should ride up to the top first and enjoy the view.
- 3.7 Top out on a knoll where the trail terminates.
