Mountain Bike Trail Review – Surveyor's Ridge and Dog River

Review by Jason Milliron

Surveyor’s Ridge Trail + Dog River Trail in Oregon Specs

24 mile loop. Some good climbing, followed by 11 miles of flowing single track with an amazing view of Mt Hood. Then a quick decent to where you parked. By far the most scenic ride I’ve ever done.

• Directions: Parkdale, OR. 1hr 30min from Portland OR. Take 35 south from Hood River. Turn left onto Smullin Dr.
  Park.
• Classification: Cross Country
• Trail Difficulty: Whoa! Airtime. (medium)
• Trail Traffic: Little help here (medium)

Surveyor’s Ridge and Dog River Trail Review

Ride starts with a pleasant four mile climb up HW 35. The two line highway has good shoulders and traffic was light when I rode it during the week. A quick moving river is off to the right. A good warm up for what’s to come.

Next, is a serious 5 mile climb up Dog River trail. If my GPS is right, it’s over a 2,000 ft gain. Most of the climbing I could handle but there where a few switchbacks that I had to push. Very pretty trail. Bottom 2/3rds I remember being smooth with some technical rock features at the top 1/3. Near the top, you start getting rewarded with some big vistas.

Next, is a quick ride through Cooks Meadow.

After that, you hit Surveyor’s Ridge trail. It’s about 11 miles of moderate, rolling single track along a ridge. Hence the name. It’s hard to get serious speed though because you keep getting hit with the fantastic view of Mount Hood and the surrounding area, off the left side of the ridge. I frequently had to stop and take photographs.

Part of this section of trail was exposed so if you’re pale like me, you’ll want to toss a little sunscreen on.

I was there in late July and was greeted by loads of wild flowers.

Next, I took a left on Oak Ridge trail and dropped down to where I parked. It was a 1,800ft elevation loss over 4 miles. A serious decent. The bottom part gets quite rocky. Number of switchbacks. If you don’t have the DH skills, you certainly want to be careful as it’s easy to gather up a lot of speed.

Entire loop was 24 miles. My GPS says 4,000 ft of elevation gain but that seems a bit much to me. Took me around 3hr and 30min of riding time. I spent an additional hour taking photos and eating.

You can also just do Surveyor’s Ridge as an out and back. I believe you can park on Nation Forest Develop Rd. 44. Looked like there where also a few places to bail out on Rd 17 if you needed to.

I was there on a week day and only saw four other people.

Since I was just visiting the area, I had to rent a ride. Discovery Bikes in Hood River hooked me up with a well equipped Giant Trance X2. Very knowledgeable and friendly personal. I provided my own clipless pedals, shoes, helmet, Camelbak and GPS.

Discovery Bikes also has directions and a trail map on their site:
http://www.discoverbicycles.com/traildetails.cfm?TrailID=2

My GPS track:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6355399