A8 THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Sports+Outdoors
MOUNTAIN BIKING
A taste of the
HIGH
COUNTRY
Bend’s Mark Johnson rides along the
Metolius-Windigo Trail with Broken Top
in the background.
Mark Morical/Bulletin file photo
Try this 0ut-and-back ride along
Flagline and Metolius-Windigo trails
BY MARK MORICAL • CO Media Group
T
he 21-mile North Fork-Flagline Loop is widely regarded as
the Central Oregon locals’ favorite epic mountain bike ride. It
includes incredible scenery and a hair-raising descent along prime
singletrack trails.
It also requires a significant time
commitment and a lung-busting 2,000-
foot climb along the North Fork and
Metolius-Windigo trails.
One way to get some of the
high-country flavor of this loop in less
time and with less uphill is to simply do
an out-and-bike ride from Dutchman
Flat Sno-park along the Flagline and
Metolius-Windigo trails.
That was my plan on a recent Sun-
day, so I made the half-hour drive from
Bend to Dutchman Flat, just across
Cascade Lakes Highway from Mount
PREP SCOREBOARD
Football
FRIDAY’S RESULTS
Redmond 44, Hood
River 8
Springfield 40,
Ridgeview 33
Canby 21, Mountain
View 18
Crook County 24,
Philomath 21
La Pine 54, Corbett 0
Madras 26, Sweet
Home 20, OT
Volleyball
THURSDAY’S RESULTS
Mountain View 3,
Pendleton 0 (no score
reported)
Mountain View 3,
La Grande 2 (15-25,
25-8, 25-21, 17-15)
Caldera 3, Madras
0 (25-15, 25-10,
25-19)
Ridgeview 3, Mazama
0 (25-19, 25-16,
25-18)
Bend 3, Crook County
0 (25-17, 25-17,
25-18)
La Grande 3,
Redmond 0 (25-21,
25-16, 26-24)
Pendleton 3,
Redmond 1 (no score
reported)
Sisters 3, Burns 2
(22-25, 25-22, 17-
25, 25-20, 18-16)
Sisters 3, Cascade
Christian 0 (25-14,
25-9, 25-15)
Girls soccer
THURSDAY’S RESULTS
Redmond 1, Sisters 0
Mountain View 2,
Churchill 0
Boys soccer
THURSDAY’S RESULTS
Redmond 3, Sisters 1
Ridgeview 1, Corvallis
0
Look ahead
FRIDAY
Football: Ridgeview
at Centennial,
7 p.m.; Redmond at
Pendleton, 7 p.m.;
Sisters at Madras,
7 p.m.
Bachelor.
I started out through a remote forest
of towering old-growth trees, the morn-
ing sun seeping in through cracks in the
canopy.
Flagline, one of the most popular
high-elevation trails near Bend, is best
tackled as a shuttle — ride it downhill
and then take any combination of trails
back to town for some 25 miles. But I
did not have the luxury of a shuttle on
this day, so I settled for the out-and-
back ride.
See Trails / A9
Mark Morical/Bulletin file
A close-up view of Broken Top from the Metolius-Windigo Trail.
High school cross-country
kicks off with IMC Preview
Spokesman staff report
The Central Oregon high school
cross-country season kicked off
Monday with the Early Bird In-
termountain Conference Preview
staged at the Deschutes County
Fair & Expo Center.
The race was held on the same
course that will host the Class 5A
IMC Championships later this sea-
son.
On a warm morning, the flat,
mostly-grass 5,000-meter course
included 2.5 laps of a loop near the
parking area at the entrance of the
Redmond fairgrounds.
The Summit girls dominated, as
Storm runners accounted for the
entire top five. Ella Thorsett won in
18 minutes, 45 seconds. Her team-
mate Barrett Justema finished sec-
ond in 19:00 and Summit’s Camille
Broadbent took third in 19:51.
The Storm won the team com-
petition with a score of 15, followed
by second-place Bend High (54)
and third-place Redmond (69).
In the boys race, La Pine’s Wyatt
Montgomery led almost the entire
race and held off a hard-charging
Hayden Boaz, of Summit, to win in a
time of 16:48, just one-second ahead
of second-place Boaz. Blake Reid, of
Mark Morical/The Bulletin
La Pine’s Wyatt Montgomery (left) holds off Summit’s Hayden Boaz at the finish line to win the Early Bird IMC Preview
meet at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond on Monday.
Bend, finished third in 16:53.
Summit won the boys team
competition with 37 points, fol-
lowed by second-place Bend (45)
and third-place Caldera (63). Rid-
geview finished fourth (79) and
Redmond took fifth (149).
All IMC teams except Mountain
View took part in the early season
race. Class 3A Sisters and La Pine
are not part of the IMC but were
invited to the meet.