Spend a Weekend Biking in the Steens

The Oregon Badlands Wilderness, so named for its wild and rugged terrain, lies just 15 miles east of Bend, Oregon. While the Badlands is easy to reach, this spectacular landscape has a way of mesmerizing visitors into thinking they’ve stepped into a different time and place.

Even for the most adventurous Bend cyclists, it’s easy to repeat the same rides week after week. There’s bike trails out your front door, plenty of groups to ride with and people just as eager as you to do it with. But for those willing to venture eastward, the rewards are spectacular—and particularly vertical.

This was the realization of three avid, local cyclists this past fall, when they sought out the longest continuous bike climb in Oregon—over 6,000 feet of gain in about 35 miles—located up and over Steens Mountain. A challenging gravel ride, a new landscape and an opportunity to camp on the neighboring Alvord Desert enticed the group enough to head to eastern Oregon for a weekend. They’d heard about the Steens Mountain Loop Road from cyclists in Bend, but they didn’t know what to expect other than a serious climb. One even assumed all they’d see was barren desert.

Though lesser-known, the alpine qualities of Steens Mountain rival Oregon’s Cascade peaks, with the summit sitting at 9,738 feet. Often mistaken for a chain of mountains, Steens is actually one contiguous monolith that dominates the horizon. Stretching more than fifty miles wide and a mile vertical, Steens is the largest fault block mountain in the northwestern United States. From the high points along its long ridgeline, one can look out over the Alvord Desert to the south and gaze into deep gorges to the north.

Steens Mountain is a land of startling contrasts: dramatic u-shaped glacial valleys, groves of quaking aspen, uplands lush with bunch grasses and wildflowers, sheer mountain rims falling away thousands of feet to the Alvord Desert playa. It’s quite the captivating place to explore, particularly by bike. And, it’s easy to see how people get hooked on Oregon’s high desert after spending time in the Steens.

An Unexpected Climb

As a true alpine environment, higher elevations of Steens Mountain hold snow into summer. Followed by scorching temperatures throughout the warmest months, and little sun protection in this landscape, cyclists typically hold off from riding in this area in peak summer. This leaves riders with a short window of opportunity in the fall, before snow comes again. As such, early September was when this crew headed out.

Sebastián Ospina, one of the three, had an idea that the Steens were “huge.” But, he recalls, “The mountains didn’t appear very dramatic on the drive in, like when you’re driving through somewhere like Jackson Hole and crazy peaks come out of the mountain floor. It actually looked pretty flat, until we got on our bikes.”

At the start of their ride, which began in Frenchglen, the group observed expanses of desert playa, short shrubs and muted color, wondering if this mountain even had a peak. Sebastián shared, “Having seen the Alvord beforehand, we figured we’d just see that more prominently as we climbed.” What awaited them was unexpected.

Suddenly, things got steep and they began to see groves of aspen and ponds along their way. As they climbed, they witnessed grand valleys, lush green vegetation that surprised them in comparison to where they began. “You experience such diverse biomes as you move through elevations from high desert grasslands to true alpine. A ride that started dry and dusty turned wet and lush. It was just so unique,” said Kieran Kuiper, another in the group.

Eventually, the top of the mountain unfolds and riders wind through open, scrubbed mountain side. From here, there are three viewpoints to explore including Kiger Gorge, East Rim and the true summit, which overlooks Wildhorse Lake and the Alvord Desert. Though each are about ¼ to 1 mile out of the way, cyclists highly recommend them. “From the lookout, you see a valley that looks like a pint of ice cream with a scoop taken out. A spectacular glacial cut that we had no idea could exist here,” effused Kieran.

From the top, the group figured that with the vast majority of the climb out of the way, the ride back to Frenchglen would be a breeze. However, Sebastián recalls, “The climb didn’t feel hard compared to what we expected because it was continuous. The descent was what got me.” In ten miles, they dropped 4,100 feet back down the mountain—no easy feat on gravel.

Upon completion, the group dropped into the historic Frenchglen Hotel, where they were treated to cokes and hot plates of food. They ended their day in a local hot spring and stayed the night on the Alvord Desert playa, as one should after a long day in eastern Oregon’s high desert.

A Landscape Worth Remembering

Only one of the group members, Henry Nadell, had seen the Steens before this ride. On a road trip back to Bend from Colorado, driving through the region, he recalled it being “the most unbelievable landscape” he’d ever seen—and still believes this to be true today. Once he saw it, he knew he had to come back.

Once visited, the Steens is not easily forgotten. Getting others to understand its intrinsic natural values from near or far, and work together to conserve the region, is perhaps the challenge. That’s what conservation organizations like Oregon Natural Desert Association have been working to do for over three decades.

The diverse habitats enjoyed by the loop road riders also teem with wildlife. Greater sage-grouse dance and pronghorn roam across these high desert lands. Bighorn sheep climb the rugged rims and mule deer hide in the ravines. The mountain hosts a congressionally designated Redband Trout Reserve and serves as vital habitat for a multitude of eagles, hawks, falcons and kestrels that patrol the endless skies above. Coyotes, owls, frogs and crickets fill the night with their calls. While the mountain is a breathtaking place to explore, these public lands are also fragile and vulnerable. Even as a protected landscape, development proposals, climate change, invasive species, wildfire and controversial management proposals continue to threaten the Steens.

Oregon Natural Desert Association led a historic collaborative effort that established the half-million acre Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area in 2000, which includes the first ever wilderness area in Oregon’s high desert, protecting 170,000 acres of exceptional wildlands. The organization continues working to preserve the grand vistas and rich wildlife habitat of Steens Mountain to this day through fish and wildlife habitat restoration projects and expansive advocacy for conservation management that limits unsustainable uses and preserves the natural attributes of the region.