Background
The Cline Buttes area is of high interest to a wide variety of people. The 32,000 acres (50 square miles) of open space land managed by BLM have been popular for horseback riding and off-highway vehicle use for the last 15 years or more. The area also has a lengthy although more recent history of mountain bike use. It is an area of juniper forest and sagebrush steppe grassland, ancient lava flows, dry canyons and stretches of the Deschutes River Canyon. Several unique features exist in the area, including the relic irrigation canals from the Columbia Southern irrigation system built in the early 1900s. A portion of these canals was designated as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) in the recently completed Upper Deschutes Resource Management Plan.
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A large portion of the area is also part of the Peck’s Milkvetch ACEC, which was designated to protect and sustain populations of this rare plant. The area provides winter range for deer and elk, as well as important habitat features (cliffs, riparian areas, snags, and scattered ponderosa pine trees), particularly for birds of prey.
The Brothers La Pine Resource Management Plan (RMP) identified the need for a designated road and trail system for motorized use in the Cline Buttes area in 1989. At that time, the population of Deschutes County was approximately 74,958 (U.S. Census). No specific road or trail designations were implemented in the Cline Buttes area over the next 10 years or more. During much of this period, the BLM began to revise the Brothers La Pine RMP to address population growth and land management issues in Central Oregon.
The Upper Deschutes Resource Management Plan was completed in 2005 and provided the broad management goals for 400,000 acres of BLM managed public land in Central Oregon, including the Cline Buttes area. By this time, the population of Deschutes County was at 143,053 residents, an increase of 52 percent. The UDRMP recognized the increased amount of recreational use in Cline Buttes, the increasing demand for a variety of recreation opportunities, and the impacts of unmanaged use on wildlife habitat and other resources. The UDRMP identified goals for creation of trail systems for both motorized and non-motorized use, and for vegetation treatments.
In the decade or more between development of these two regional resource management plans by the BLM, the amount of use by visitors recreating in the Cline Buttes area has increased greatly. In addition, this period saw considerable residential development occurring adjacent to and within the Cline Buttes area.
Noteworthy among these was Eagle Crest Resort, which included Phase 2 development on the east side of Cline Buttes in the early to mid-1990s and the Phase 3 development which is ongoing on the north side of the Buttes. In 2005, an additional destination resort (Thornburgh Resort) was proposed for the Cline Buttes area. This 1,970 acre Resort would occupy the majority of the remaining private land on the Buttes themselves. An additional 160 acres of State land on the buttes is currently leased by the Thornburgh Resort for a future road connection between the Tribute and Pinnacle portions of the resort.
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