There are ribbon cuttings. There are grand openings. And then there is Oregon, where a group of people dressed for a Halloween mountain-bike ride crashed through a wall of toilet paper to celebrate a new forest bathroom.
I cannot tell you how much I love that this was somebody's actual plan.
The event happened October 17, 2026, at Drift Creek Trailhead in Tillamook State Forest. A new CXT vault toilet had arrived, and the people who helped make it possible decided that, if you were finally going to give an entire trail network a much-needed place to go, you might as well make the opening memorable.
Yes, somebody came up with the toilet-paper idea on purpose.
I emailed Virginia Ohler, executive director of the State Forests Trust of Oregon, because I had questions. Who looks at a brand-new toilet and thinks, “This needs more ceremony”? Was everyone really on board? Ohler laughed and admitted that the idea was hers. If the weather behaved, they would decorate the building with toilet paper. If it rained, the backup was a toilet-paper wall.
The Pacific Northwest took one look at that plan and did what the Pacific Northwest does: it brought the rain. So the wall it was, with costumed participants from the annual Frienduro mountain-bike gathering tearing through the paper as the restroom got its big moment.
The original photos show a crew of enthusiastic humans in Halloween costumes, standing outside a building draped in long white streams. A skeleton, a cow, some gloriously difficult-to-identify costumes, and a dog all turned out to celebrate plumbing. Somewhere, somebody is looking at that group picture wondering whether this is what they went to college for.
The funny part is the ceremony. The serious part is the trails.
Ryan McLane of the Westside Trail Federation helped organize the Frienduro event. He explained that the nearby Fear and Loaming mountain-bike trail had been open for six years without a really good place to “ahem” use the facilities. The new restroom also serves people connecting from the Wilson River Trail and the developing Larch Mountain area trail network, as well as hikers and other visitors using the trailhead.
That may not sound like a glamorous cause until you've spent a rainy day on a trail with no bathroom in sight. A clean, accessible facility changes what a visit feels like for families, older visitors, riders and people who need somewhere to stop before getting back on the road.
And it doesn't appear by magic. The Oregon Department of Forestry managed the installation project, with support from the State Forests Trust of Oregon. McLane's trail community and volunteers are part of a much larger story: recreation facilities and maintenance often depend on local organizations raising money, showing up with tools and doing work that rarely gets a giant ribbon or a round of applause.
The Frienduro gathering also raises funds for the Westside Trail Federation's hoped-for Electric Snake trail project. The people running through a toilet-paper wall are some of the same people trying to keep the wider trail system healthy. That connection is considerably more impressive than the joke, even if the joke is excellent.
A small building with a big community behind it.
I love that a restroom gave this whole group an excuse to gather, laugh at themselves and celebrate something useful. Most of us won't think about who made a trailhead bathroom possible after we've closed its door. Virginia and the volunteers did. And they gave the building a debut it almost certainly did not request.
May every Oregon trail have people like this looking after it. Preferably with fewer emergency toilet-paper shortages.
If you're planning a trail visit
Where: Drift Creek Trailhead, Tillamook State Forest, Oregon. This is not the similarly named Drift Creek Falls trail elsewhere in the Coast Range. Confirm the correct trailhead, current road access and recreation status through the Oregon Department of Forestry recreation information. Trail conditions change with weather.
Event status: The costume-and-toilet-paper opening was October 17, 2026. This is a report on that celebration and the new facility, not an invitation to an upcoming ribbon cutting.
Original reporting: Direct October 15–29, 2026 emails with State Forests Trust of Oregon executive director Virginia Ohler; event account and comments from Westside Trail Federation director Ryan McLane. Background and current visiting context: State Forests Trust’s original restroom campaign; Westside Trail Federation’s Drift Creek-area trails; Oregon Department of Forestry’s official trailhead access listing. Photo credits: Hannah Rierson (both photographs). Images and normal editorial crops cleared by the source organization. No visit or firsthand attendance by PNW Passport is implied.
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