Morrow County Report

[liv2day]

For the last 13 years, a group of bike nuts has gathered in the small community of Fossil, Oregon, for a weekend of riding, bench racing, and hanging out. Before I was back into trail riding, we'd descend upon this great little town to enjoy the amazing roads and scenery of central/eastern Oregon. Miles and miles of incredible twisties await anyone wanting to ride through; easily some of the best riding Oregon has to offer.

Fast forward a couple years and I no longer have a street bike, just a track bike that's a royal pia to make street legal again. Not wanting to give up a great weekend, I hauled my dirt bike out last year to explore Morrow County OHV. Had a good time and decided to do the same thing this year...only on my GG.



Another buddy decided to check it out with me while everyone else was either doing the street ride, riding horses, or doing a bicycle ride - funny how things have changed over the years.



The majority of trails at Morrow County are 2-track (lots of quads), with some single track thrown in here and there. The plan was to try and hit all the single track we could find; as well as attempt the goat trail that we were only able to make it 2/3rds of the way through last year.

Navigating around Morrow is decent -at least the trails are well marked. They have a map of the area, but it leaves a bit to be desired; hard to tell how to connect trails. Anyway, we naviguessed our way through a bunch of trails and only missed one section of single track that was on the original plan.

One section we skipped on purpose, stopped at the top and took a peek over the edge - talk about steep (GoPro doesn't do it justice). I would have liked to looped back to check out the bottom of this trail to see what it was like going up...next year.



We finally made our way to the goat trail and decided to start from the end we didn't make it to last year (lol). Humbled to say that we made it all of 1/4 mile before tucking tails and turning around. Once section was so completely washed out that we had to walk the bikes uphill; trying to ride just washed the back tire downhill and it would have been hell getting out if you tumbled. Literally took 45 minutes to go 25 feet; think I'll just skip it entirely next year...lol.



After getting out of that, we doubled back and hooked onto one of the best single track trails at that park and had a blast bombing it back toward staging. Along the way, we ran across a herd of elk at least 50 strong; wish I would have taken the little point-and-shoot camera out as they were too far away for the video to capture anything.





Had a great time exploring more of the park; only logged 34 miles for the day, but it was fun. We loaded up and headed back to the ranch where we've stayed every weekend - which I highly recommend regardless of where you're from (Wilson Ranch).

Nothing like coming back from a ride to this deck to hang out and this to enjoy





Have some video of a few of the trails he hit - most of this is the single track from the park. The best section of single track is the 3rd video; also the longest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSUqIccE1NU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3gDFkL4zf0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOQlibC4c4o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZEEER6Z_XU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSTJz03Jqq8