Why would you want to ride this trail?
- You want to do some trailwork and then ride downhill
- You're at Boundary Campground and want a quicker way to get up to Bearwallow.
- It is a downhill that can be shuttled, albeit with a rather lengthy shuttle drive for a very short trail. You'll be waiting for ages in bustling Wallowa for your transport to arrive. God forbid you try to drop off another vehicle and pick it up after the ride.
- You're in the Joseph area jonesin' to ride all of the DH options around. This is yet another addition to a collection of gravity-based riding that tourism in Joseph could really develop because many of the necessary assets are already present.
- Because it's there.
After all, the trail is only 1 mile of genuine "trail." There are no distinctions anywhere that the trail exists nor are there indicators of what it's named. Since there aren't any named land featured by the trail, I'm calling it Bear Down until a local corrects me.
As shown here from the top of the ridge, the trail goes through a short jungle along a bermed-off road that traverses for a while before a rock cairn points the way downhill on singletrack. The singletrack section is in fairly good repair and has been moderately maintained. The road up top definitely needs some work getting cut out but a singletrack type trail already exists on the road bed. Since this old road parallels a road on the top of the ridge, you could just hike-a-bike straight down to the trail from the top. Most of the grown in part of the road is at the south end. One map I saw showed the trail continuing up the ridge until it met the road at the top but I didn't find this part of the trail.
Getting There
Near Minam, you can drive up the Big Canyon Climb to where the road first reaches the top of the ridge after a right hand bend. Just after that point there is a split in the road and you go left and start to drop off the east side. See the trail notes below from there. To get to the bottom ridge, look for a grassy road going west at the top of a rise on Bear Creek Road. There is a pullout there too. This road goes straight up the mountain for a short bit and then ends. The trail starts right there. This starting point is 1.5 miles from Boundary Campground.
Trail Notes
- 0.0mi Start down the road from the top of the ridge.
- 0.3 Not far down the road look for a bermed road on the left that you'll take.
- 1.3 Look for a rock cairn on the right to guide you off the road and down the trail.
- 2.3 Arrive at the end of a road that drops you straight down to Bear Creek Road.
