A new path for the Old Mill Pond trail-Old Mill XC Invitational 10/11/25
- Michael Bergmann
- Oct 8
- 5 min read
The McKenzie Community Track and Field in Blue River Oregon is a special place. The Track complex emerged from a former lumber veneer mill and a pond adjacent to the property.
The Aaron and Marie Jones Track and Field was built in 2003 and has hosted everything from middle school to professional level track meets in this small rural community.
The Holiday Farm Fires
The Track and Field complex sits on the old mill propery and the mill pond existed on the west side of the track. Over the past few years the berm around the pond became overgrown with blackberries and other invasive plants that took over what once was a trail around the pond.
We have slowly grown our ability to host track meets to bring people back up river following the devastating Holiday Farm Fire in 2020 which essentially incinerated the town. This past year following the Aaron and Marie Jones Invitational we talked about how do we create a way for athletes to warm up and cool down during the meet and not have to go onto the narrow road next to the track. Board Members Cliff Richardson, Sylvia Dion , Megan and Brett Weiss and their helpful kids spent a few weekends clearing branches and debris on the Track property and then extended their work to the Pond Trail to see what it looked like to at least walk around.
As word got out we were trying to clear a path around the pond, local Zach Nastasiuk shared that he could help make the work go faster with a Masitcator to remove the overgrowth on the trail over a 2 day period. That initial work allowed us to see the potential of this beautiful trail and how we can create something special.
In May of 2025 we started talking about the potential bringing back Cross Country to the McKenzie Community Track and Field and started to Imagine what needed to happen for this to become a reality in 2025.
We shared the progress we had made with others in the community and started making phone calls and planning to see what could be accomplished before the Fall XC season. Through my work with IncubatorU and the McKenzie Community Track and Field I had collaborated with Ken Brown of Rexius Landscape Services in Eugene/Springfield. I know that Rexius has been instrumental in building great trails around Oregon including the new Dellinger Trail in Springfield and the Hollister Trail at the Nike Campus in Beaverton. I asked Ken what they could do to help make the Old Mill Pond Trail more runner friendly. Ken did some checking with his team and offered to provide wood chips for our trail but the only catch was for our team to figure out how to pick them up and get them delivered and then spread. How can we get enough wood chips to make a difference.
John Barnes connect with Virgil Kropf owner of Brush Creek Transport of Brownsville ( Sweet Home). Kropf made the trip down to Rexius to load the as many wood chips we could transport in his massive trailer to the track. Earlier in the month we were looking for pick ups and small trailer loads to bring up but this beautiful trailer held 260 yards of wood chips for us to create this amazing trail.
Word got out to a few of the locals that pitched in to help. Sonny Willis spent hours and weekends filling in low spots, removing emerging blackberries and prepped the pond trail as we mapped out where the wood chips would go.
One of our event directors, Chad Sperry of Breakaway Promotions offered during his off season to lend us a hand with his skid steer to move bark chips and prepare the trail. He came over this week from Redmond to help get the course ready.
Not only has the MCTF Board and their families stepped up to help but local talent and those that know about what we are trying to bring to the community through events and sport.
The course starts and finishes on the Aaron and Marie Jones Track and loops around the mill pond and the 3 Sisters Meadows and finishes on the AMJ Track. We believe that this course will be the beginning of more training and walking opportunities within the community.
We are going to have a cross country meet and a course to remember!
As the community members and friends coordinated the trail preparation with Cliff Richardson as the team's quarterback, others on the Board of Directors began planning the meet.
We quietly but confidently put the meet on the Athletic.net High School Cross Country Calendar and invited over 40 teams but by they time we got it listed many teams had made commitments to other events. We have a half dozen teams this year but believe our meet this year will set us up for the following years. The last time a cross country meet was run in Blue River was 2013. We are bringing it back with the help of so many people.
We moved ahead with the planning from Course Layout with design and measuring from legendary and experienced track and XC coaches, Kelly Sullivan and Matthew Barreau.
MCTF Board Vice President and school parent Laurel Pfiefer-Meister ordered the awards and began coordinating volunteers for the meet.
The entries are in. The Course is being prepared. The team is ready and we hope everyone loves the event as much as we loved putting time into it. This is a start to years of growth. I have seen it happen before when Tom Rothenberger and I started a middle school cross country meet called PDXC and it grew fro 40 kids to nearly 2500 over the course of 10 years.
Imagine a course and a Cross Country Meet. Identify each of your resources that has something to contribute. Initiate the work to get it done and reach out to those that have resources you do not and invite them into the project. Implement the work, the meet organization, the volunteers and create a great experience for everyone involved from athletes to parents to coaches and community members. Integrate what we started and learned this year and grow and improve upon it in upcoming years. Stay tuned....
The IncubatorU 5-Step Methodology is at work again...transforming another project.
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