Washington's Beloved Exit 27 Trails Are Under Threat — And Riders Are Fighting Back
The Pacific Northwest has long been mountain biking's spiritual home in the United States — a rain-soaked, root-riddled cathedral of singletrack where the sport's grassroots culture took hold long before trail-building grants and land management plans entered the conversation. Nowhere does that culture run deeper in the greater Seattle area than at the Exit 27 trail network on Rattlesnake Mountain, a web of hand-built, rider-stewarded lines woven into the forests of Raging River State Forest just off Interstate 90. Now, those trails are in jeopardy, and the mountain biking community is responding with rare urgency.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources has begun decommissioning long-standing community trails on Rattlesnake Mountain, and the community is not accepting it quietly. Since the announcement, over 3,500 signatures were added to a Change.org petition demanding a re-evaluation of the decision — and the numbers keep climbing by the hundreds every few minutes. What began as a local land-access dispute has become something bigger: a flashpoint in the ongoing national debate about who gets to manage public land, who bears responsibility for maintaining it, and what happens when agencies shift from partnership to enforcement.
The Geography and Legacy of Exit 27
The Raging River Trail is a system of mountain biking trails around Rattlesnake Ridge, accessed from I-90 Exit 27, and represents a developing network of trails within Raging River State Forest. The name "Exit 27" is both a logistical marker and a badge of identity — it's where you turn off the interstate and step into a different world. Nestled between Rattlesnake Mountain, the Cedar River Watershed, and the Issaquah Alps, Raging River State Forest is a key outdoor recreation destination that offers numerous close-to-home adventures for the region's growing communities.
The Raging River mountain bike trail system in the Rattlesnake Mountain area off I-90 Exit 27 is perhaps the greatest testament to the new wave of trail development in Washington, with a whole new trail system coming into existence and continuing to improve year after year. The front side has easier flow trails, while the backside has technical advanced and expert riding — a balance that makes the zone work for everyone from weekend warriors on hardtails to gravity-obsessed locals who know every root and rock by feel.
The trail network's origins predate any government plan. This is a maintained network, cared for by the hands of a passionate community of riders who have dedicated over 1,000 volunteer hours in 2026 alone to clear storm damage, host work parties, and clean up trailheads — a stewardship effort that has been ongoing for over 15 years, with most of these trails predating any sanctioned building in the area. That's the detail that stings hardest for local riders: these weren't rogue lines cut last season by a couple of guys with shovels. They represent a generation of community investment, built and maintained by people who love the mountain and know it better than any land manager sitting behind a desk in Olympia.
What DNR Is Actually Doing — and Why
The Policy Shift That Started It All
To understand the current crisis, you have to understand the timeline of Raging River State Forest's development as a sanctioned riding destination. The Raging River mountain bike trail network has been over a decade in the making since DNR acquired the land in 2009. Phase I, completed in 2017, introduced 15+ miles of ridgeline trail in a lollipop formation, with a loop at the midpoint. DNR built a 4-mile stacked loop out of Exit 27, while Evergreen crews used excavators at higher elevations to add six more miles.
The partnership grew from there. Evergreen's long-standing partnership with DNR helped establish and develop 40-plus miles of trails in the Raging River system, including bringing existing legacy trails into the network. Phase III brought 11 more miles of trails, ranging from a green cross-country connector to a black diamond hand-built descent, with several blue-level trails in between — including four descents, a blue climb with black diamond technical options, and a green two-way XC connector — with Evergreen constructing seven miles and DNR four of the total mileage using professional crews and volunteers.
The grand opening of Phase III's final two descent trails was celebrated just days before the decommissioning controversy erupted. Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, in partnership with DNR, held a free, public grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 10, 2026, marking the opening of two new descent trails and the completion of the final phase of construction of the Raging River mountain bike trail network. Then, just two days later, the bulldozers came for different trails in the same zone. The timing felt like a gut punch.
Four Trails, But a Larger Fear
The Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance moved quickly to clarify the technical scope of what DNR is doing. Right now, DNR is decommissioning four trails on DNR-managed land that do not meet their recreation management goals. DNR is engaged with leaders from the Exit 27 trails community about those trails — specifically, two trails near existing hiking routes within the protected Rattlesnake Mountain Scenic Area, as well as two other non-designated trails in the area near Return Policy, with these decommissions confined solely to the identified specific routes and not including the core Exit 27 trails.
Many of the Exit 27 trails are on U.S. Forest Service land and are not under the jurisdiction of DNR. That jurisdictional distinction matters enormously, and Evergreen has been careful to communicate it. But riders on the ground are less reassured than the official statement suggests. Community members report that there were four trails scheduled for immediate action but at least ten more planned later this year and into spring, with those being in the upper 27 area and RRAZ — and there's genuine concern about whether Evergreen is fully aware of or addressing that broader scope.
The petition language goes further than Evergreen's measured tone. The decommissioning follows completion of the final two trails in the Raging River State Forest mountain bike recreation plan, and DNR's shift from construction to enforcement is one that, applied broadly, would remove community trails across DNR-managed land throughout the I-90 corridor. That is the crux of the community's fear: not just four trails today, but a precedent that eviscerates the informal network that has defined riding in this corridor for decades.
The Human Cost: Volunteer Hours, Access, and Advanced Riding
Numbers tell part of the story, but the emotional weight of this situation lives in the experiences of the people who have built their riding lives around these trails. One North Bend local put it plainly: "These trails are part of our mountain biking history and community. I learned to ride here before sanctioned trails in the area existed. I've seen firsthand how these trails grow the sport and bring people together. Decommissioning them would cut off access and erase countless volunteer hours. Let's work collaboratively with the Tribes, DNR, Evergreen, and builders to find solutions."
That sentiment captures a tension that runs through mountain biking's relationship with public land management everywhere in America. Riders build trails in the woods, agencies eventually assert jurisdiction, and what follows is either a productive legitimization of community effort or a bureaucratic erasure of it. The Exit 27 community is pleading for the former. The Stewards of Exit 27 Trails are offering free volunteer labor for any corrective work required to bring these routes into the sanctioned system — and for now, they are simply asking the DNR to pause the removals, open a public comment period, and evaluate the routes for official adoption.
Access is not just a matter of trail preference. The Upper 27 and RRAZ trails are the only link between DNR's advanced trails and both Exit 27 and the town of North Bend, and the connector meant to replace that link does not yet exist. While a sanctioned replacement is planned, its construction remains years away. Eliminating these trails now — before any replacement is in place — leaves a functional gap in the network that would hurt intermediate and advanced riders the most. Local advocates warn this aggressive approach threatens historic, rider-maintained networks across the entire I-90 corridor and would greatly reduce the availability of more advanced riding in the area.
Who Uses These Trails? Not Just Mountain Bikers
One of the strongest arguments in the community's favor is that Exit 27 is not a single-use destination. Decommissioning these trails will impact not only mountain bikers, but also the hikers, trail runners, dog walkers, and foragers who rely on them. In a region where trail access is increasingly contentious and land managers face pressure from multiple recreational constituencies, erasing a multi-use corridor without a clear replacement plan damages far more than one community's weekend plans.
There is also a cultural dimension to this landscape that the petition explicitly acknowledges. These trails sit on the ancestral land of the Snoqualmie People, and petitioners support evaluating their future in consultation with the Snoqualmie Tribe — asking DNR to make that consultation part of an open process rather than a reason to act without one. It is a notably sophisticated position for a trail petition to take, signaling that the Exit 27 community understands the full complexity of the land they ride on and wants to be part of a genuine, inclusive solution rather than simply demanding access for its own sake.
The Precedent Question: Physical Therapy Trail and What It Proves
Sanctioning Unsanctioned Trails Is Possible
Advocates are not arguing in a vacuum. There is already a proof of concept within the same trail system. Physical Therapy trail proves that sanctioning previously unsanctioned trails is possible. The PT trail — a beloved, technically demanding route in the Exit 27 and Raging River zone — went through the process of being formally recognized and brought into the official network without being demolished and rebuilt from scratch. If it worked once, riders argue, it can work again for the trails now under threat.
That precedent is more than a rhetorical talking point. It demonstrates that DNR, Evergreen, and the trail-building community have the mechanisms in place to evaluate informal routes, address genuine resource concerns through reroutes rather than total removal, and expand the sanctioned network by absorbing trails that already have established user bases and active stewardship. The community is not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the same process that was applied to Physical Therapy to be applied here.
Evergreen's Position: Engaged But Not Responsible
Evergreen has been careful to clarify its role: DNR is responsible for these decommissioning decisions, and this work is not part of Evergreen's agreement with DNR. That distinction is important for Evergreen's credibility with the riding community, which might otherwise view the alliance as having facilitated the enforcement shift by completing the sanctioned system that triggered DNR's pivot. Evergreen values its partnership with DNR and continues to work with them, while recognizing that decisions about DNR-managed land ultimately rest with the agency — and DNR has indicated a willingness to discuss future actions that may affect trails in this area.
Evergreen has a long history of engagement and advocacy regarding these trails and continues to be engaged with DNR in discussing the future of these trails and their importance to the community. They have expressed appreciation for everyone who has spoken up and shared how much these trails mean to them, and have committed to remaining engaged in conversations regarding access going forward. For now, that's about as much as the alliance can publicly commit to — but riders will be watching closely to see whether that engagement produces results or just reassuring language.
The Broader Context: A Pattern Playing Out Across America
The Exit 27 situation is not unique. Across the United States, informal trail networks built by passionate local communities have faced the same fundamental tension: years of unofficial stewardship followed by an agency assertion of regulatory authority, often triggered by the completion of a formal recreation plan that now sets the legal standard for what belongs and what doesn't. It has happened in the Southeast, in the Rockies, and along the West Coast. The question is always the same — does the agency choose the spirit of collaboration that built the trail culture, or the letter of land management policy that could erase it?
What makes the Pacific Northwest version of this conflict particularly charged is the scale and sophistication of the riding community involved. The Raging River trail complex joins the neighboring East Tiger Mountain bike trails, bringing more than 40 miles of mountain biking trail to residents of Issaquah, Snoqualmie, and North Bend. Recent trail system expansions have rapidly positioned the corridor to become a big draw for out-of-state visitors looking to spend a weekend riding. This is not a backwater scene. The I-90 corridor is becoming one of the Pacific Northwest's premier mountain biking destinations, and the decisions made right now about which trails stay and which ones go will shape that destination for the next generation of riders.
What began as a vision for conserved land and connected singletrack has blossomed into an incredible mountain biking destination — built through deep partnerships, countless volunteer hours, and a dedicated community. Dismantling any part of that without community consultation and a viable replacement plan risks undermining not just the trails themselves, but the collaborative model that made the whole system possible in the first place.
What You Can Do Right Now
The petition at Change.org — titled "Keep the Exit 27 Community Trails Open" — is the most immediate lever available to riders who want to weigh in. The petition was created on October 5, 2026, and the signature count has grown explosively since then, drawing supporters from across the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Riders from Oregon have already signed. Out-of-state riders who have never set foot on Rattlesnake Mountain are adding their names because they understand the stakes extend beyond any single trail system.
The petition asks DNR to hold off on decommissioning, open a defined public comment period, and assess the specific trails for inclusion in the Raging River system — with reroutes or closures only where a genuine resource concern is documented. That is a measured, reasonable ask from a community that has demonstrated it is serious about stewardship and willing to do the work. For over 15 years, a passionate community has stewarded the Exit 27 network, logging over 1,000 volunteer hours in 2026 alone to clear storm damage and maintain trailheads. Those are not the actions of a community that needs to be managed out of the forest. They are the actions of people who have earned a seat at the table.
Beyond the petition, riders with connections to Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance should make their voices heard through that organization's internal advocacy channels. Evergreen has the institutional relationship with DNR that individual riders do not, and sustained pressure from the riding community on Evergreen to push hard in those conversations could make a concrete difference. Attending DNR public meetings, contacting state legislators who represent the I-90 corridor communities, and showing up to volunteer work parties to demonstrate active stewardship — all of these actions build the case that these trails have an organized, responsible community behind them.
The Clock Is Ticking
The decommissioning that began on October 12, 2026, is already underway on at least four trails. Every day that passes without a formal pause from DNR is another day that a piece of mountain biking history may be permanently erased. The community has responded with impressive speed and volume — over 3,500 signatures within hours of the petition going live — but a signature count alone will not save these trails. What will save them is sustained, organized engagement with the decision-makers who have the authority to change course.
The Exit 27 network represents something that cannot be easily rebuilt once it's gone: a quarter-century of accumulated trail knowledge, volunteer investment, and community culture encoded into the dirt of Rattlesnake Mountain. These trails have been shaped by years of riding, volunteer work, and care from the people who use them — and that kind of organic development produces riding experiences that no agency construction project, however well-funded, can fully replicate on command. When riders talk about what makes Exit 27 special, they're not just describing the terrain. They're describing the history embedded in it.
DNR has indicated it is willing to talk. Evergreen is at the table. The community has spoken loudly and clearly. The next move belongs to the agency — and the riding community will be watching every step of the way.
