By toolbear on June 27, 2009
BANKS VERNONIA LINEAR STATE PARK – Buxton trestle open to riders.
Snapshot Stats…
It’s a nice place to spend a weekend riding on a good blacktop trail bed. The BVT starts at Anderson Park in Vernonia. (Camping, hookups, showers, covered picnic shelter). Runs down to dead end (no trail head here) outside of Banks. Distance is 21 miles. The trail is 8’ of nice blacktop most of the way. The exception is the Tophill diversion around the trestle there. The terrain runs from forested hills (shade) to farmland in the valley bottoms.
Check out the trail brochure and map at:
< http://www.oregonstateparks.org/images/pdf/bv.pdf>
Coming down the hills from Vernonia toward Portland, there are trail heads with parking at Anderson Park, Beaver Creek, Tophill, Stub Stewart State Park, Buxton and Manning. See the trailhead notes for the GPS coordinates and facilities notes. Water can be found at Anderson and Stub Stewart.
I see that TrailLink has the route, but none of the tail head details and shows a Banks-Vernonia State Park that does not exist. The Banks-Vernonia State Linear Park (rail trail) does. On the other hand, they don’t show the Stub Stewart State Park, which does exist.
“L.L.” Stub Stewart State Park is about midway and very modern (2007) with two RV campgrounds, a tent campground, horse campground, cabins, etc. Stop at the Visitor Center there for trail maps and facilities.
The BVT is paved down to the vicinity of Tophill Trestle. From there you take a gravel diversion down into the valley, across OR 47, and back up the other side of the valley to rejoin the rail bed. Blacktop picks up beyond there and continues down to the end of the trail.
I took the section from the SSSP trail crossing down to the Manning Trail Head as a Down & Up. It was a delicious downhill ride on excellent blacktop. You are in the forest until you exit the park, so you ride down a green tunnel and the air is cool. Then out of the park, across the fields to Manning.
I left the SSSP trail crossing (Elevation 875’) at 0938 and was at Manning (Elevation 257’) at 1010. Milage: 6.16. Max speed 21.5 mph and moving average 14.3 with little effort (just wait until the return – 13.5 max and 7.6 average). Picnic tables and benches are located along the route, usually where there is a view.
The best bit is the refurbished curved trestle at Buxton Trailhead. They have decked it with Trex boards, laid diagonally, and railed it with 3x material to breast height. On the way back, take the horse bypass down below and get some photos of the trestle from the bottom. There are so few of these left. The time had been when they were all over the west.
The Vernonia Voice reports that the state has the funding to complete the backtop on the Tophill section of the trail. The trestle there will be removed. (Check the TL picture file - the poor trestle is only part there.) The trail will be extended into Banks where a trail head will be constructed. Expect completion in 2010 or 2011. The park folks say that the mountain bike single track project in the park is in the plan – but has not happened yet. Stay tuned for this one.
Trail Head Information…
MANNING Trailhead (N45d 39.892’ x W123d 09.809’) - small gravel parking lot, 2 picnic tables, NO toilet or water. Closest to Portland and bottom end of trail, so it gets used.
BUXTON Trailhead (N45d 41.905’ x W123d 11.009’) - large gravel parking lot, vault toilet, covered picnic shelter, numerous scattered picnic tables. Horse facilities. No water seen. The Buxton Trestle is at the bottom of the trailhead. Best feature on the trail.
STUB STEWART STATE PARK Trail Crossing (N45d 44.257’ x W123d 11.721) - limited time parking & limited spaces. I staged out of the Visitor Center up the road for toilets, water, phone, wifi hotspot, parking, etc.). SSSP is new and has several excellent campgrounds from full hookup to tent sites.
TOPHILL Trailhead (N45d 45.501’ x W123d 12.091’) - gravel parking lot, vault toilet, picnic table, horse facilities, no water. There is a gravel diversion around the Tophill Trestle (crosses over OR 47). This is the only gravel on the trail.
BEAVER CREEK Trailhead (N45d 48.641’ x W123d 13.863’) - large gravel parking lot along highway and trail heading over bridge to the BV Trail. Picnic tables along the trail. The vault toilet is hidden about 100 yds down (toward TopHill) the trail. No water.
ANDERSON PARK (VERNONIA) Trailhead & End (N45d 51.374’ x W123d 11.686’) - The park has camping (hookups), flush toilets, showers, water, and a large covered picnic shelter, etc. Nice place to stage out of if you can arrange a shuttle and do the trail downhill.
By runhard on August 29, 2008
Apparently this is the summer that major changes are happening on the trail. We started at the Manning Trailhead on Pihl Road, just off Highway 47. The parking lot was filled with construction equipment and gravel piles. Another trail user told us to go a hundred yards east to Pongratz Road and continue north on the gravel road until we met the trail again. It was about a 1 1/2 mile detour, but when we got there, we could see the trail was under construction and will probably be complete in a couple of weeks. I just viewed the area on Google's satellite view and saw that when the picture was taken, at least part of this section was a cultivated field. It should be completed shortly.
We continued on up the trail, now a beautiful newly paved path with a woodchip border for equestrian traffic. It was a steady uphill climb for the next seven miles. The only exception was the horseshoe trestle just south of the state park picnic area. It too is under construction and looks like it will open any day now. In the meantime, you take a good but steep path down and up the other side of the valley to the picnic area. We continued on several more miles to another crossroad in the state park. Beyond the road was a steep grade and a ballast trail, so we decide to turn around at this point and enjoyed a zippy ride down to our starting point. A 2 or 3% grade kept us at 15 mph without pedaling, all the way to the detour.
Even though it was a hot day in August, trail users are under a tree canopy for most of the ride. It is a thoroughly enjoyable trail.
Lyle Clugg
By Grayotter on July 08, 2008
We rode our tandem from "Stub" Stewart State Park (listed in our GPS as "Hares Canyon State Park" a GPS glitch) almost to Banks. The trail ends 1/2 mile before Banks, but turns into single track that crosses a rickety railroad tressel 1/4 mile later. We turned back. At "trail end" there is a short gravel road to Highway 47 to Banks. This highway has no shoulders and logging trucks travel both ways along with moderate heavy traffic. We chickened out. There are occasional 2" thick gravel crossings on this end of the trail, however the 1 mile gravel stretch of the trail was not a problem. We returned to Manning for lunch, then back uphill 5 miles to the campground. If you're only riding 20 miles we recommend driving to the bottom of the hill and riding up to State Park. You can almost coast your way back. Whichever way you go, this is one of the nicest trails we have ridden. We ride 50 trails a year and plan to come back to this one.