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Mrazek » Lower Trail
Trail Snapshot:
Trail Description
E-bikes NOT allowed on Mrazek » Lower
The Mrazek Trail is maintained by Phil Meglasson (the Phil of Phil’s trail) and is not maintained by COTA. You can expect lots of twists and turns, tight corners and Phil’s unique flavor of trail design along the way.
The trail begins at the West end of Shevlin Park and heads up the ridge in a fairly moderate grade all the way to the intersection with Metolious Windigo trail. You can also access the top of Farewell near the top of Mrazek. There is a section of Mrazek near the bottom which was burned in the Two-Bulls fire in 2014 — riding through the burn area is interesting as the fire charred the landscape beyond recognition and opened up some decent views.
There are 2 optional lines off of Mrazek. One up high which is fairly short and offers a steep downhill segment. The other line is a black line closer to Shevlin. This line basically rides down the center of an old creek bed and has some technical obstacles here and there.
Mrazek is also accessed from Phil’s area by taking the BS logging road off of the Skyliners Rd/MTB trail intersection to the North where you will find an unmarked trail dubbed “Kratsch’s Crossing” on Strava. This leads you through the woods to the BS logging road further on, and after heading down and back up this road you will see a trail heading out to Mrazek near the top of Shevlin Park.
Mrazek was named after a locally based bike brand and largely attributed to the rep Jeff Bernard. You can still see a few Mrazek Bikes rolling the trails these days.
Great conditions, until about 1 mile from the top/junction with the road (of lower Mrazek), where you get decent bit of snow. This was at 4950′ of elevation.
Some wankers have been cutting a new line around the last set of rocks at the top of the climb out of the park. I place a couple of sticks in the way, but it probably won’t last. It seems they would rather re-route the trail than have to walk or learn to ride an obstacle.
No snow, it’s all good.
Riding well up til about 5700ft. then notable snow. free of trees up to this point as well
Two very small, rideable snow patches, first at 4850’, but in general trail is great, 100% rideable.
First snow patch scene at 4350 feet. Next crossable patch at 4650. impassable snow at 4750.
Rode it yesterday (Oct 26, 2023). All good. There are a few frozen puddles and a few very thin snow patches on lower Mrazek. As soon as you get to the interesection with the “road” part (i.e. to Upper), then there’s snow. I only made it maybe another mile up before had to turn around due to too much snow/not enough traction.
Ride all the way up to Farewell. Crossed about 15-20 dead fall trees across the trail. Extended the ride quite a bit to keep getting off the bike. Bring a chainsaw!! Some small patches of snow, but nothing major.
Snow line starting around 4800 FT.
As mentioned riding well until just before the top of the downhill section. Thinning work, while generally tastefully done, has reduced several of the bar-rubbing tree gaps to pedal-striking stumps, I’m afraid.
Riding great for an after work Friday ride. Couple ice/snow/mud patches encountered and then a lot of snow at the top of the lollipop. The “downhill” side of the lollipop is still under snow.
Trail is open on weekends – DNF closure M-F.
Lower MrAzek is mostly snow free, mostly mud free 4-8-23
Riding well, but noticing the Manzanita is tall and encroaching more on trail making for shorter sight lines.
Gary Bridwell and Phil removed 24 inch snag from trail.
From Shevlin to just below the Canal Mrazek is riding well. Two snow patches which will be gone shortly
Great riding. Starting at the second parking lot, Shevlin Park loop trail ultimately leads to the Lower Mrazek trail. Not necessarily shown on the trail signage. Cheers!
Large (2′) tree down across trail, about halfway up lower Mrazek. Requires you to lift the bike over then scoot over (or under).
Any more info on its location? Just planning on hike in with big saw.
May 4th- 12″ tree across the trail around 5450′ on the loose singletrack above the fireroad. Somebody took a hand saw to it so you can crawl under. Thanks!
That’s actually upper mrazek. Lower turns to upper at the bottom of the fire road.
Good for a bit past the shed. Around 4,800’ begin patches of snow and mud.
Tree down just north of the green shed, a second (smaller) tree down about a half mile further north.
2 trees cleared today
Trail was in prime shape from Shevlin up to the top of the “black” section. Black section has snow drifts in it. looked pretty snowy above that section still.
Consider posting a “Wrong Way” sign again at the end of the ditch downhill section. Encountered a dad with a baby on the handlebars late last night climbing up this one-way section. No joke.
That’s crazy. Mrazek’s not an official COTA trail as I understand it — so I’m not sure who would be “allowed” to put up a sign. Probably a job for rogue wood worker who’s got some router skills…
All good on lower Mrazek. Fast, flowy, fun! Get it!!
Riding well all the way up to near where it becomes Upper Mrazek where I turned around
Worth noting that with the Tree Farm expansion of Shevlin Park it’s three miles of mostly dirt from Phil’s TH to the beginning of the Mrazek climb out of Tumalo Creek. That avoids taking the BS logging road entirely.
Clear all the way to Jack Pine Spring road, and likely for a while above that. Crossed about 20′ of snow below that point.
All clear to the green shed. Turned around at that point/
Mostly good trail with minor snow drifts until you get to the black section (slaloms) then they start getting deeper and more frequent.
Dusty with one sand trap in the slalom section.
Hero dirt all the way up to 4601, which had some larger snow patches. No puddles or mud otherwise.
Pert solid trail conditions up to the black diamond section (aka slalom) then it starts to get soft and snowy
Classic textbook winter mix: freeze/thaw low, some ice, packed snow in the middle, and powder snow up high. I turned around at the green outhouse since it was getting dark and the pedaling started to get a little tough. Also cleared a tree about 1/4 mile from said outhouse. (It’s not really an outhouse btw)
Hiked just lower portion. Too muddy for bikes. Let dry. Avoid.
80-90% of the trail is currently 1/4 inch, mostly packed snow with spotty hero dirt. After the last road crossing where it opens up you start hitting 1 to 2 inches of snow which makes climbing a bit of a challenge without a fat bike but still doable if you keep your momentum. Amazingly there was no blow down from that wind storm on Tuesday
Mrazek riding well up to 4,350′ (top of new black diamond split) and looked decent beyond.
One down tree on the trail in the burn area.
Tree has been cleared. Freeze thaw in full effect. Quite a few sections were already soft by noon.
Lower, Lower Mrazek was good on Tuesday afternoon. Started to hit packed snow and some ice just past the ‘black diamond’ split. Everything below that to Shevlin Park was prime.
Crusty snow, sheets of ice, deep puddles, hero dirt, slop. Not good.
Just puddles left. Trail condition is firm underneath so just make sure you right through the middle of them instead of going around. Might want to bring some fenders.
SO MUCH FUN!
Rode up Farewell (clean and clear) then down Mrazek to Shevlin and back to town.
From the junction with Farewell going down (East), there is maybe 2 inches of slushy snow for 1/2 mile or so. No problem riding down through the snow present. However riding up it would have been annoying or difficult IMO.
Now that we (group of 5) put some tracks through there it going west/up would be more possible(assuming it’s not covered tonight).
There were a few more patchy areas of snow below that, and some puddles, but nothing that presents any issue riding.
Otherwise it is wide open and super fun.
Rode from Shelvin Park; After the split there is increasing snow, mud, and puddles. Turned around at green shed; 2-3 inches of consistent snow.
Bro’s, we love your full face helmets and Knee pads. They look cool. Marazak is a great cross country single track that has two way traffic with uphill right away. Have a great summer everyone.
Let it go man…
Trail has been split into Upper and Lower Mrazek for ease of updating.
Yes!!! thank you!!
I think you mean road 575, which is the road right before the twisty manzanita meadow. I rode 4601 up to where mrazek crosses it and tried riding down. The trail had 2 – 4 foot snow drifts going across it and was hard to navigate. Its going to take a couple more weeks.
Basically clear up the canyon to the 5500′ point where you cut left to the other side. Just a couple of easily rideable snow patches. From there, looks like quite a bit of snow on the north facing slope up to rd 4602.
Ran Mrazek the other day. Totally clear til first intersection with 4601. Kept going through a few snow patches (about a 1/3 miles) and one large tree over the trail after that. Made it to where it starts climbing right under the ridge and then there is a lot of snow. Its melting quick though.
Updating status to ‘riding well’ to encourage riders to use the lower parts of trail rather than waiting until the entire length of it is open. I made it out to the Tumalo Loop Rd/NF 4601 intersection where I finally hit snow patches. Dusty up until that point
Burn today: http://deschutescollaborativeforest.org/press-releases/smell-smoke-prescribed-burning-central-oregon/
Had a great ride up to the top of the burn section (about 5,200′) on Friday 4/28. There were some snow patches, but I was able to get through the majority of them with no, or only a small dab. I concur with Eric, the recent efforts to maintain the trail are greatly appreciated. Masterfully done.
Riding great until a couple of snow patches just before the old burn section (1 mi past the canal). Feel it should be changed from “Winter Mix” to “Riding Well” since it is in great shape before the snow line. But not sure if the whole thing needs to be clear first.
Also hats off to the guy that was working on drainage issues about half way up. Pretty sure it’s the same guy I often see on Mrazek. In any case, thanks!
Large unrideable snow patches and soft trail just past the top of the “black diamond” turnoff.
Patchy snow starts 2.2 miles from 46 road. Crossing. 2.8 miles more snow than trail. I bailed at that point
Rode Mrazek on Saturday, 3/25. Couple small snow patches right before the climb coming off of the creek in Shevlin. Got turned around maybe .5mi prior to bottom of black diamond split. Higher than I anticipated on getting! Riding great
Riding great up to the bottom of the black diamond split. Start hitting snow patches within a few hundred yards up from there
There’s about 100 years at the very beginning of Mrazek where it’s close to the creek that has snow/ice. The steep slope and all the rocks are clear. We didn’t go uphill past the road so don’t know exactly how far up it continues to be clear but everything we could see down the trail from the crossing was snow free.
I rode Northfork, Met Win, Mrazek, farewell today. Upper Mrazek was 8-10″ snow, but mostly rideable due to the downhill grade. Eased up quite a bit once on Farewell. Farewell was sweet.
Lower section is in great shape. Started getting snowy around the steep canyon at 4601-100, but still very do-able on a fatbike. Snow started coming down hard so we turned back before Farewell.
Mrazek trail is closed from Forest Road 4606 to FR 4609 for 2 days. Reroute in place & trail is expected to reopen Wed
Cleared of deadfall between met win and big gravel road yesterday. I hear phil was working on drainage near the bottom as well.
One tree down between farewell and met-win. Several puddles noted, though trail surface is slightly soft to damp packed.
16 trees down between viewpoint and Farewell. Trees can’t be ridden around, bummer. Aside from a few squishy spots and pudddles higher up, Mrazek is riding well.
yea about 10 trees from the viewpoint up, otherwise the trails is really good
If you start trail from BS logging road, you will encounter periodic deadfall and trail-wide puddles due to melt, once you reach ~9 miles up. For those reasons, I turned back after 10+ miles (before Farewell.) At 3+ miles up, there was only one small tree across trail. Hope this provides actionable insight.
Rode Mrazek last night. The trail is little sandy right now, but seems to get a lot less traffic (especially the upper part) — so not as blown out as other areas. I’m not a fan of the tree ‘choke-points’… modern mountain bike handle bars are pretty much too wide to fit through the gaps and the flow suffers as a result IMHO.
Rode today (Sunday, July 24). Not a blowdown in sight from Dutchmans to Shelvin! (thanks!!). Riding quite well, especially compared to Phils and Wanoga areas. Lots of traffic on the Met-Win today, but ironically not a soul on Mrazek. Thanks for all the work on this awesome stretch of trail.
2 trees are now clear on the top of Mrazek
Still 2 trees down on upper Mrazek. Large trees above farewell.
Still there.
Thanks Shane! There is one big double stack blow down between the top of Mrazek and the junction with Farewell. As well as a huge root ball that will require a trail reroute (also between the top of Mrazek and Farewell)
Nearly cleared the last bit from the end of Farewell to the start of Met-Wen. There are only 2 trees left down but we ran out of gas. Everything else is clear.
Dennis Faure
June 24th @ 4:00 PM
Rode up North Fork today was O.K. until you get to Happy Valley, from there to the Junction with Farewell is very bad blow down and hard to navigate over, just remember that you cannot turn around and ride back North fork. Wait until this is cleared out or you will be sorry!
Cleared today by Cog Wild and Robert Axle Project. Thanks all!
So, are you meaning it is clear all the way to Road 370?
I asked Lev and he thinks it’s all the way. Bealle was up there Wednesday and didn’t have much left. If you check it out let us know what you find!
Any idea what the trail status is from 370 to happy valley? Which club or group usually clears that section?
That’s part of the Met-Win trail. COTA says they take care of Met-Win from Big Meadows to Northfork, but nothing about doing more than that.
According to a facebook post, there’s a half mile remaining that needs work.
As of Monday, Mrazek is not clear to the 370 road. It is clear approx .25 miles above Farewell, then blowdown to the 370 road. MW between the 370 road and Happy Valley has a lot of blowdown.
Rode from my house in Shevlin area and didn’t ride the whole thing but it is in great shape. After a couple work events with COTA I have a new appreciation for what it takes to keep the trails riding well. The drainage work and banked turns were noteworthy. Love the “disguise” logs used to keep folks out of the drains and in the turns. Great job Phil and whoever else puts in obvious time maintaining this trail. Thank you!!!
I was out today clearing some blow down and somebody beat me to a lot of it. I didnt hike every foot of trail but it looks like Mrazek is clear to a mile or so above the rock outcrop viewpoint.
I went out t clear trail and the lower sections below the rock outcrop were already done, I continued on up and cleared down from the point that if you were starting at the Mrazek/Farewell junction, the first crossing of road 700, I cleared down from there to the point where some other party had been out and cleared up to that point, i.e. the midpoint from the first rd 700 crossing and the rock outcrop/view point. Unfortunately I ran out of saw gas and there are still 2 trees crossing the trail right in the middle section between the top most Rd 700 crossing and the rock outcrop/view spot. From rd 700 on up to the Farewell junction I am pretty sure is still socked in with over 150 trees down trees.
Thanks to whoever was also out there clearing trail today, you must have just left as I saw your truck tracks and saw dust/fresh chips!
That would have been my wife and I clearing all we could w/o a chainsaw. :)
Clear until about half way from towers to Farewell. Phil and Mike (I believe were there names) were busy today with a chainsaw working there way up, but still at least 30 trees down. Farewell has a lot of trees down once you get above the clearing into the trees.
Jumped on Mrazek from Bearwallow Road before it becomes NF-4602 (~8 miles to Shevlin.) Riding well.
Looks like a lot of work has been done on Mrazek very recently all the way up to the Rd 4601 crossing at +5,650′. Trail is in awesome shape. Above there and up to the +5,850′ viewpoint there are somewhere around a dozen trees down. Beyond the next road crossing after the viewpoint there are a LOT of trees down. I turned around there. Virtually no snow at all on the trail.
Per friend’s report from two days ago: frequent downed trees start just before radio towers and continue until about halfway down farewell. There is more bike hiking than riding and seemingly more downed trees than standing.
Still quite a bit of snow and downed trees just beyond 4602, about 5700′. Just a couple tiny patches of snow and no trees below that.
Rode up to roughly 5650′ and hit a lot
Of snow near intersection of 4601 and 4602.
Rode up Mrazek to Road 675 at around 5300 feet. First tiny patch of snow here. No deadfall but some kind of overgrown sections up higher. Riding well.
The last 1/3 of a mile was a hike-a-bike, but I was able to get all the way to NFD 4602. The trail went from “completely clear” to almost “completely unclear”. Here’s my strava route. https://www.strava.com/activities/556027974
Rode up 4601, and had a look at Mrazek: there’s deep snow and probably some trees down under it.
I backtracked to road 675, which is an overgrown dirt road that goes down and hits Mrazek. That worked out well, with just a few big snow patches there, and Mrazek clear from there on down.
With riders going up ten miles from Shevlin that’s almost to 6000′. I bailed onto the 700 Rd at 6000′ going down trail at the end of last October because there was so much deadfall and more trees were falling in the wind that day. Wouldn’t think anyone’s been there to clear trees over the winter. I don’t remember how many, but there were trees down every few hundred feet from the Met/Win Jct to the 700 Road which is past the Farewell Jct.
Mrazek is riding well until what point? Has anyone been as far as farewell?
Based on what I have heard – no.
As of 2 weekends ago (4/10) the high point was the gravel climb. Lots of deep snow left up there since it doesn’t get much sun. Probably a good few weeks until it melts out. Riding great up to that point though.
Where that Mrazek pin falls on this map is pretty much how far you can get before the snow becomes a little much. That was from Shevlin on Sunday. The short downhill section right around there had a small amount of snow but was fun to ride.
Things were grown in a little higher up, so long sleeves might be nice for a mile or so on the way back down. Otherwise, riding real well.
We rode 10 miles from Shevlin Park before we hit patches of snow not worth hike-a-biking though. No deadfall up to that point either.
Mrazek completely rideable from shevlin to canal. Snow starts within a mile from the canal. Snow patches get more and more frequent up to mile 10 after which the snow is too deep to ride in. All snow patches can be ridden down hill though.
Mrazek is almost snow free 2 miles past the canal. I did a loop up Mrazek and over to Skyliners, I had to ride down the pavement and up 300 Rd and down Phils. Still a good loop.
If you want to avoid some pavement to get over to upper Phils, the 400 Rd has just a couple of patches of snow.
Riding well up to about 4700′ (8 miles in from Shevlin Parking lot). Patchy snow gets more frequent above that point.
Tempted to give this a Riding Well status since the Eastern half is money in the bank but left it on Winter Mix. It starts to get snowy/muddy when you arrive at the fork for the advanced section (no idea how many miles in that is) and I rode for another half mile or so after that. Getcha some!
Thanks for the tip. Rode there today. That whole lower part is perfection.
Trail is great lower down. Only snow patches don’t start till over 4000′ and don’t get frequent till 4400′. Even then they’re intermittent drifts. More riders = more melting faster :)
The Mrazek trail was remarkably firm and fast for about 5 miles, starting from Shevlin Park. I rode my fat bike but I could have easily been on my regular mountain bike. But then very quickly it became unpassable with knee deep snow and no sign of any previous showshoers or skiers to pack it down. I made it to 4000′ and turned around. It was a great descent though.
Cool. Thanks for the report.