EDITORIAL: County seeks to legalize public road access

Published 12:48 pm Monday, August 22, 2022

For a route that’s steep, narrow, strewn with rocks and inaccessible to many vehicles, the Pine Creek Road has attracted quite a lot of attention the past 2 years.

And quite a lot of litigation.

But the controversy over this road on the east side of the Elkhorn Mountains, about a dozen miles northwest of Baker City, isn’t surprising.

The issue isn’t the condition of the road, but where it goes.

The road not only accesses several parcels of private property, some of which have cabins, but it leads to some of the more scenic alpine country in Baker County. After passing through swathes of private property, the road enters the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. It’s the access route to Pine Creek Reservoir, a popular place for visitors to see mountain goats on the eastern slopes of Rock Creek Butte, at 9,106 feet the tallest summit in the range. The road ends at an unofficial trail that crosses a ridge and descends to Rock Creek Lake, another jewel of the Elkhorns.

It was inevitable, then, that people would be upset after David McCarty bought the largest chunk of private land in the area, 1,560 acres, in September 2020, then installed a locked gate at the east end of his property.

Baker County commissioners reacted to the subsequent public outcry by cutting the lock.

After McCarty filed a lawsuit against the county in April 2021, commissioners started the process, under Oregon law, of declaring the road a public right-of-way. Commissioners gave final approval, on Aug. 17, to a resolution doing so, and ordering all gates and other obstacles to be removed. The requirements didn’t take effect immediately, as the resolution is in a 60-day appeal period.

Commissioners’ legal action was appropriate considering the importance of the road and its decades-long history of public access. Unfortunately, that access had never been formalized. In court filings McCarty has pointed out that before he bought the property he reviewed a title report that showed no public rights-of-way across his property coinciding with the road.

McCarty’s suit, in which he is asking the county to pay $730,000 if the road is deemed to be public, is still active. So is the lawsuit that two couples, who own property adjacent to McCarty’s, filed in late July. They’re asking for at least $250,000 each for loss of enjoyment of their property.

The Pine Creek Road controversy illustrates the potential issues that can arise when a road has been customarily used by the public for decades, but never actually had a legal right-of-way. This is hardly surprising, considering such issues weren’t necessarily important when the county was young.

The county’s new resolution doesn’t end the dispute over Pine Creek Road — the two lawsuits are pending.

But ideally the commissioners’ action will legally, and permanently, establish the public’s right to travel a road that has been a popular route into the high country of the Elkhorns, and access for private landowners, for decades.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor