A Conversation with a Rogue Trail Builder
One of the exciting things about mountain biking is you never know what you’ll find or see on the trail. From lost car keys to bike parts to spotting deer or a bear from afar, we can never anticipate the unanticipated. I’ve spied on bald eagles perched directly above me and have peered down from a low cliff to watch a 6-foot-long white sturgeon lazily swim at the surface. I feel as though I’m always prepared for the unexpected … or at least assume I could anticipate confronting a mountain lion on the trail (which I couldn’t) or troublemakers shooting guns too close to the trail. But a few weeks ago, I came across something … someone … I wasn’t anticipating.
A rogue trail builder.
Full disclosure. I’m not telling you where I met him. As I came around the bend in the trail, I noticed a nice bike leaning up against the tree. I saw a bucket, rake … and then him with a shovel in hand (FYI, the photos in this article are not from this encounter). And so I stopped. I immediately dismounted my bike, hurled profanities at him, snatched the shovel out of his hand, and with gargantuan strength, I broke it over my knee in disgust. Well, that didn’t happen. Looking back on that encounter, I wonder if righteous indignation should’ve washed over me where I did lash out in some way. Instead, I stopped, gave a friendly greeting, and had a pleasant conversation with him.
As I pedaled away, I reflected on what I should have done. Here he was digging a new jump line at a trail system maintained by a local volunteer chapter of a mountain biking trail advocacy group. There were already designated trails, regular work parties to maintain the trails, and a healthy agreement with local, state, and federal agencies. In other words, what this trail builder was doing was, in a sense undermining this agreement.
Instead, I listened. I asked this rogue trail builder what he was up to (in a non-threatening way) because I actually did want to hear him out. If I would’ve come with verbal guns a-blazin’, I’m confident that would’ve shut down the conversation before it started. So he shared. With creativity and a child-like passion like those building new lines at Red Bull Rampage, he shared with me the progression of his jump line. I followed his hand gestures as he motioned me through his line. He then revealed the whereabouts of another line he had previously built.
Listening to him, I didn’t detect anything malicious. Not ill intent. Nothing reeked of “I’m gonna stick it to the MAN.” Instead, he just wanted to dig and make a “sick line.” It immediately took me back to digging and building jumps when I was a kid. I had no idea whose land it was nor had any harmful intentions. We just wanted to ride and jump our crappy BMX bikes. I noticed the same in him. When I did mention the trail advocacy group, he didn’t seem to know much about them. Not only that, but he was interested in learning more and getting involved in dig days. I shared more.
I told him that his trail would probably be removed on the next trail building day. He seemed resigned to that fact and didn’t express any resentment. I think he knew. While he didn’t know all, he did know enough. With that, we exchanged departing goodbyes, and I pedaled away. I decided to check out the other line he created previously. I rode it … or around it. It was a bit sketchy. In my mind, I should’ve circled back to him again to rebuke him for his unsafe line and how it was a danger to young and old riders who may find it. But I didn’t. I should’ve.
It made me think of the trails I rode when I first seriously got into mountain biking. While it was a designated trail system, the trails weren’t even built by human hands. Instead, the trails followed cattle paths used by those on horseback. Mountain bikers came many decades later. Nothing machined. No sick berms or table tops. Heck, it wasn’t even erosion-resistant. But there it was … this massive trail system. Raw. Very raw. Still raw. And do you know what? We made more. We added loops, new routes, and the like. And it was completely acceptable. No one maintained the trails then.
Was I any better than this rogue trail builder? What makes one a rogue versus one “playing by the rules?” As we celebrate such events as Red Bull Rampage, how is what they’re doing the week or two leading up nobler than this rogue trail builder? Does the conversation simply boil down to who owns the land and the agreements to use it? No, I’m not advocating for more rogue trail builders. No, I don’t approve. But there’s part of me that also says, “why not?” I know the answer, but I still ask it sometimes. Especially in a city like Portland, where access to off-road trails is horrific at best, I am sometimes tempted (in my mind) to hack and carve a downhill run on the backside of Rocky Butte. But I don’t. I won’t. I’m a card-carrying member of my local volunteer trail organization.
While I know it’s “wrong,” you know, right up there with tax evasion, speeding, jaywalking, overdue library books, and embezzlement … there’s still a part of me that wishes we had more places to simply dig, create, and be a kid again. Even if the trails are raw, not flowy, and sometimes a little sketchy.
Words: Sean Benesh Photos: Sean Benesh
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Benesh
Sean is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Trail Builder Mag. He is also the Communications Director for the Northwest Trail Alliance in Portland, Oregon. While in grad school, he worked as a mountain biking guide in Southern Arizona. Sean also spends time in the classroom as a digital media instructor at Warner Pacific University, where he also leads and coaches the WPU Cycling Club.
