Deschutes Trail Coalition Small Projects Grant
In the fall of 2021, Central Oregon Nordic Club was awarded a grant of $7500 to help us implement the addition or rerouting of ten miles of cross country ski and snowshoe trails out of five Sno-Parks in the Cascade Lakes Highway corridor, and to replace worn or damaged junctions signs on the trails we maintain. The grant money was provided by the Deschutes Trails Coalition through their Small Projects grant fund. CONC also provided over $5000 in additional funds, plus tools, supplies and volunteer labor to complete the work.
We’re just wrapping up the work and expenditures associated with this grant. Here’s what we've accomplished with this money.
New trails at Dutchman: In 2022, we completed work on the Dutchman trail system improvements. We’ve put in a new snowshoe trail from the Dutchman Sno-Park that connects to the Todd Lake Loop snowshoe trail. We also re-routed a stretch of the Water Tower ski trail in order to eliminate the bridge near the Water Tower that was hazardous at high snow depths, created a crossover trail between Flagline and Flagline Access, and re-routed the top section of the Big meadow trail to separate the trail from snowmobile traffic.
Trail additions and changes at Edison: Work began in 2022 when we re-routed parts of the Direct Current ski trail, the Light Bulb Loop ski trail and the Long Loop snowshoe trail in order to avoid sensitive wildlife areas. We also added two new snowshoe trails: a tie trail to create a shorter alternative to the Tesla loop, and a dedicated snowshoe trail to the AC/DC shelter.
Swampy Lakes Trail system: The most extensive changes occurred here.
We now have a new Summit Bypass snowshoe trail on Telemark Butte that is less challenging than going over the top of the Butte. The snowshoe trail to Nordeen Shelter from Meissner was also rerouted in order to make the trail less steep.
Two sections of the Beginners Loop ski trail were rerouted in order to make this loop easier to negotiate for beginners.
The western end of the north Swede Ridge Loop trail was re-routed to move the junction out of the swamp. And two more trails were added to the ski trail system: the Shelter tie trail connects the Ridge loop to the Swampy Shelter, and the Crosscut Trail connects Flagline with the new Shelter Tie trail. These two additions provide a variety of new options for loops that connect with the shelter.
In addition to all the trail improvements, we’ve been replacing damaged or missing junction signs with new blue engraved signs that we think will last longer and be more visible to winter recreationists.
There’s still more work to be done as a part of this project. We have approval for a new snowshoe trail to install at Vista Butte, and we expect to complete that trail in 2024. We also have funds to update the You Are Here signs, and are experimenting with a different way to display them at Dutchman to make them easier to adjust at varying snow depths.
There are more pictures from this project in this link.
A huge thank you to the Deschutes Trails Coalition for providing funds for this work.
-Sue Sullivan
