Insider's Guide to Forest Park

Forest Park Guide: The New Face of Forest Park

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

Designated as a National Recreation Trail, the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park stretches 30 miles from Washington Park to NW Newberry Road.

FOREST PARK’S NEW RANGER stands barely north of five feet tall with thinning red hair and a pair of square tortoiseshell glasses. Smokey Bear he is not. But this summer, as legions of Portlanders fan outward to commune with nature, Bob McCoy will be a similarly potent symbol as the first-ever full-time guide, guard, and all-around go-to guy for Forest Park.

McCoy’s daily presence in the woods (the city promoted him from a seasonal ranger to full-time in September) is meant to help solve one of Forest Park’s most elemental yet vexing challenges: a vacuum of information. Despite its status as one of the largest city-owned wilderness areas in the country—a 5,100-acre, fir-studded blanket that cradles some 80 miles of trails and more than 60 native species of mammals and 100 species of birds, all within yodeling distance of a city of more than 500,000 people—Forest Park has some glaring omissions. There is no park visitor center. No central trailhead. No singular place to a grab a brochure. The few permanent metal trail maps that are scattered inside the park are old, faded, and hard to decipher. Trails are signed, but it’s not always clear who has a right to use them, leading to clashes between the park’s myriad user groups: mountain bikers, hikers, runners, equestrians, and dog walkers. And until McCoy started walking the beat, there was nobody to provide a compass, or a referee’s whistle.

True, Portland has always employed a stable of a 10 or so seasonal urban rangers. But these positions had to be split among dozens of city parks, so none could devote the kind of day-in-day-out attention that a wilderness on such a vast scale demands, much less effectively enforce any rules or educate visitors about their impact on the park.

McCoy now patrols up to 15 miles a day in the park—by foot and mountain bike—logging user stats and wildlife sightings, and fielding questions about everything from what trail to hike to the complexities of the park’s watersheds. But with rule-enforcing powers that include handing out citations to owners of off-leash dogs, he is fully aware that not every park lover will welcome his badge-carrying status. “I’ll probably piss off half the people I meet,” he chuckles.

A former Philadelphia-based editor and publisher who decided to switch career paths when his wife wanted to relocate to her native Portland, McCoy says he’s no stranger to conflict. “I used to deal with authors,” he says, “and they’re the most difficult people you’ll meet.”

If ever Forest Park needed a smooth-talking Smokey, it’s now. In 2010, the park suffered a series of sieges both physical and political. First, in February a rogue mountain bike trail was hacked out of the woods in an area north of Germantown Road, in the park’s pristine North Management Unit, an area frequented by migratory elk. The discovery effectively soured the public and elected officials to even law-abiding mountain bikers like members of the Northwest Trail Alliance, a mountain bike advocacy group that had been in the process of negotiating with the city to add more singletrack trails to Forest Park. Two months later, a Linfield College professor released a study that concluded that young trees were dying in the park at an alarming rate.

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Image: Danielle Hughson

The Wildwood Trail above NW Cornell Road and the Audubon Society of Portland

Then the City Club of Portland sank its teeth into the park. Last May the 95-year-old group, whose early members helped create the park, issued a 58-page, humdinger-packed report dubbed, “Forest Park: A Call to Action.” Among its more incendiary revelations was the fact that despite its size—some 47 percent of all Portland Parks & Recreation lands—Forest Park received less than 1 percent of the city’s $99.5 million park budget, roughly $500,000 in 2010. The report jabbed especially hard at the parks bureau’s failure to follow its own park management plan, a blueprint crafted in 1995. The plan called for, among other things, a park user survey, strategies to combat invasive species such as English ivy, which has infested up to 30 percent of the park, and a full-time, paid ranger. Little had been done. Some clubbers were so rankled that they proposed the park should be taken over by Metro. To cap the calamitous year, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s popular Oregon Field Guide program aired a special on Forest Park that cast a seesaw view. The upside: Forest Park is a still a gem. The downside: we’re rapidly loving it to death.

“Have you heard the expression, ‘We went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out’? I think a similar thing happened here,” says Nick Fish, the city commissioner in charge of parks. “[In 2009] we began a community conversation about whether there was room for off-road cycling in this jewel called Forest Park. And through that sometimes painful process, we heard from the community that the city needed to do a better job as stewards. And that’s my no. 1 goal—Forest Park has risen to the top of the list.”

Indeed, Fish and crew have been busy. In addition to bringing on McCoy, the city completed a recreational user study with Portland State University. In January, the parks department released a Desired Future Condition Report to help guide park restoration efforts during the next 25 years with actions like a vegetation-monitoring program slated to begin this summer with the help of Forest Park Conservancy, an advocacy group the city has officially partnered with to tend to the park. Fish has also earmarked $80,000 for a yearlong wildlife study in 2012, an endeavor that could help foster a better understanding of Forest Park’s strategic connection to the Coast Range.

“If ever Forest Park needed a smooth-talking Smokey, it’s now."

The efforts have not gone unnoticed. “I feel strongly that Portland has made a commitment [to Forest Park],” says Mike Houck, the director of Portland’s Urban Greenspaces Institute and noted champion of natural areas like the popular Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, which, he notes, the city transformed from a one-time “tsunami” of Himalayan blackberries. “But it’s going to take many years to achieve the kind of conditions we’d like to see 50 to 100 years from now in Forest Park.”

Meanwhile, McCoy hopes to reinforce his ranks by deputizing members of a volunteer park ambassador program, essentially a neighborhood watch for the park.

Still, Portland’s spectacled steward of Forest Park remains realistic about his own effect. “This is a big forest, and I’m just a little guy,” he says. “I can’t change people. But I can help shape an experience in the park. And I can set them on the right path.”

Image: Michael Byers

Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

Forest Park Guide: The Best Runs

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

Image: Ryan Moore

Chasing rays on the Wildwood Trail

Villain: G.R. Couper

Fueled by rumors of oil reserves in the West Hills, G. R. Couper, a representative of Texaco, filed an application with the city for an oil lease in lower Macleay Park in 1945. Portland decided to ignore the wills of pioneer donors, who deeded the property to the city on the condition that it remain “sacred as a public park,” and approved some 5,000 acres of forested land for drilling. Three wells were sunk, but after one drill reached 7,885 feet without finding oil, Couper’s dream died.

MAPLE TRAIL LOOP
Moderate to Hard/see map l7/Hike #10
The secret ingredient for the perfect run: variety. Find plenty on this kitchen-sink loop that sprinkles in gentle paved paths, with stints of all-out trail dashing. Sharp uphill switchbacks on the Maple Trail will ignite your quads, but once on Leif Erikson, it’s smooth sailing along a sylvan two-mile stretch of gentle-graded road that’s bathed in sunlight. Then, once back on the Maple, a mile-and-a-half finish scampers over a rolling, stream-splashed downhill pitch. Now that’s a runner’s high.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Saltzman Road off of Hwy 30, turn right on the Maple Trail, left on Leif Erikson, and then left on Maple to return to Saltzman. (Round trip: 6.22 miles)

WILDWOOD TRAIL MILES 9-11

Easy/see map H5/Hike #11
For the casual runner—or anyone with creaky knees—this section of the Wildwood Trail is just what the doctor ordered. Here gentle rolls, twists, and turns are rejuvenating rather than exhausting, and the trail’s out-and-back simplicity means you can zone out to the views of big trees and deep canyons, disturbed only by the sound of your footsteps and a rush of wind. When you hit Firelane 1 after two miles, take a moment to catch your breath in a small, picnic-table-strewn meadow.

SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW 53rd Drive, go left on Wildwood Trail to Firelane 1. Return the same way. (Round trip: 4 miles)

Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

Image: Michael Byers

Forest Park Guide: The Best Bikes

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

Image: Michael Byers

Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

HERO: Fed Nilson

As city parks manager for 30 years, Nilson battled chronic budget cuts throughout the 1980s and ’90s and maintained Forest Park with a skeleton crew. Undeterred, Nilson reenergized the dormant Friends of Forest Park (now the Forest Park Conservancy) by rallying volunteer workers and expanding the famed Wildwood Trail by more than six miles, from Germantown Road to Newberry. An arboriculturalist by training, Nilson was also the first manager to declare war on nonnative plant species, creating the volunteer-based No Ivy League in 1993 to eliminate pesky English ivy and later ensuring that invasive species removal was a long-term priority in the park’s seminal 1995 Management Plan.

FIRELANE 5
Moderate/see map Q5/bike #6
The one legal patch of singletrack in Forest Park is found deep in the park’s ferny central interior. At just a third of a mile, it’s a short ride. But it packs a wallop. From Saltzman Road, Firelane 5 careens down a wide pathway, funneling riders to a lively jumble of rock- and root-laden curves. Check your speed on the final switchback, which requires a vertigo-inducing hairpin turn before plummeting to Leif Erikson. Bonus: this summer, the city is scoping out plans to narrow the upper portion of Firelane 5, lengthening singletrack cruises.

SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Germantown Road, head south on Leif Erikson and turn right up Saltzman Road. At the top of Saltzman descend Firelane 5 back to Leif Erikson. (Round trip: 10 miles)

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Cruise control: riders explore Leif Erikson near NW Germantown Road.

FIRELANE 3 LOOP
Moderate/see map G7/bike #7
Ferns and firs morph into a green whir on Firelane 3’s near mile-long roller-coaster descent from Skyline Boulevard to Leif Erikson. The hair-raising plunge at the half-mile mark is worth the ride alone. And like Firelane 5, this trail is being considered for enhanced singletrack work this summer.

SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Leif Erikson’s Thurman Street entrance, pedal to Saltzman Road and turn left. At Skyline Blvd turn left. Look for the top of Firelane 3 in the Thunder Crest neighborhood on the left, just past Skyline Memorial Gardens. Return via Leif Erikson. (Round trip: approximately 10 miles)

Park Inspirations: Marcy Cottrell Houle

Portland-based wildlife biologist and author of the guidebook One City’s Wilderness: Portland’s Forest Park

Image: Emily Tate

It can be hard to wrap your mind around the park. But if you think about it as a habitat and a series of watersheds that are intertwined, it becomes so much more knowable. The Maple Trail is a treasure—you could just take it and drop it into wild sections of the Coast Range. The park teaches you to be an observer: you think, “What can I learn from this place? How can I enrich my life?” It’s really a place you can connect with the native habitat, and with who we are as Oregonians.
—As told to Rachel Ritchie

Forest Park Guide: Wildlife Crossing

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

FROM THE SKY, Forest Park resembles a long, slender finger sprouting from an endless mass of wilderness that expands north and west to the Pacific Ocean. In scientific parlance, such an uninterrupted connection to a larger ecosystem is known as a wildlife corridor—a veritable highway for critters great and small to safely frolic and dine on one another, relatively unencumbered by roads and development. And it helps to explain Forest Park’s rich trove of wildlife (nearly 200 species of birds and mammals, and counting). Here are three park-dwellers that showcase Forest Park’s wild side.

Image: Thomas Cobb

Northern Pygmy Owl
When full-grown, these elusive birds stand only about six inches tall. Darting through the forest, they are easily mistaken for well-fed song sparrows. It’s estimated that there are about 20 pygmy owls living in Forest Park each year, usually nesting in streamside snags away from forest edges. And because these owls are diurnal—active during the day—there’s a good chance you might hear one cooing from a treetop on your afternoon stroll.

Image: Thomas Cobb

Elk
Although they slip easily into the park, it’s unlikely that more than 10 elk would be roaming in Forest Park at any given time. They prefer to travel along ridgelines in small, same-sex herds, adding to their five-foot-tall, 700-pound frames by munching on sword ferns and shrubs as they go. Grassy power-line corridors are especially enticing for their ease of travel, and most elk spotted in the park are seen northwest of Germantown Road, generally in off-trail, interior areas.

Image: Thomas Cobb

Bobcat
Bobcats roam a territory of up to 42 square miles and have been observed in remote, northwestern locations of Forest Park. ?But because they are solitary—and stealthy—population estimates are hard to make. However, the area has definite appeal for bobcats, who dine on nesting ground birds and small rodents like moles and mice, all richly supplied by the park. Though only twice the size of a typical tabby, these cunning cats are also capable of bringing down a deer.

Forest Park Guide: Growing Pains

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

LIKE A BOA CONSTRICTOR WITH ROOTS, English ivy slithers up trees, engulfs them whole, and crushes them to death. And unfortunately for bark-skinned residents of Forest Park, ivy is virtually unstoppable. The park’s temperate climate and lack of natural enemies provide conditions for prolific growth. Vines shoot up some nine feet per year and blanket the ground. “Some vines can get as thick as person’s calf,” says Rachel Felice, the city’s nature stewardship coordinator. Felice helps oversee nearly an acre of ivy pulling annually in Forest Park, where, according to a 2004 vegetation study—the city’s most comprehensive report—some 30 percent of forest has been infested. The good news: to date, nearly 26,000 trees have been freed. But ivy isn’t the only alien being terrorizing Portland’s Eden. In 2003 parks workers cataloged the “Dirty Thirty,” a rogues’ gallery of Forest Park’s most menacing uninvited guests. Here are three that keep Felice up at night.

Image: Thomas Cobb

English Holly

Infestation Level: HIGH
Removal Methods: ROOTING, HERBICIDE
Holly may well spruce up a Christmas wreath, but this is one present no one wants. Spread by birds like starlings and sparrows that gobble its attractive berries, holly has taken root in as much 90 percent of the park. A true sun hog, it grows rapidly in dense, overlapping layers that snuff out all surrounding light-dependent life.

Image: Thomas Cobb

The Asian Long-Horned Beetle
Infestation Level: LOW—FOR NOW
Removal Methods: TREE FELLING
When captured for research, these one-and-a-half-inch-long insects gnaw their way out of plastic bags. But that’s bubkes compared to what they do to trees. The bugs bore into cores, where they are impervious to pesticides, and lay up to 1,000 eggs. Soon host trees resemble swiss cheese, too weak to support their own weight. Since 2005, all wooden packaging materials imported to Oregon must be treated for these invaders.

Image: Thomas Cobb

Garlic Mustard
Infestation Level: HIGH
Removal Methods: HERBICIDE, ROOTING
Introduced to North America from Europe in the 1860s as a culinary herb (garlic mustard makes a tasty pesto), this mastermind of bio warfare puts the bite on whatever grows nearby. Toxic chemicals—harmless to humans—leach from its roots and into the soil, killing its neighbors from the ground up. Capable of flowering and spreading seeds even when uprooted, the plant also sickens butterfly larvae and eggs deposited within its noxious leaves.

3 ways to combat invasive species in Forest park

1. Portland Parks and Recreation’s “No Ivy League” hosts drop-in ivy-pulling, trail restoration, and planting work parties on the first and third Saturday of each month. Visit noivyleague.com for details or to sign up for the city’s No Ivy Day event in the fall.

2. In addition to its popular guided hikes series—themes include wildflowers and “owl prowls”—Forest Park Conservancy contributes some 10,000 hours’ worth of park stewardship. Full-time field crews accept volunteers for trail repair work, invasive plant removal, and plantings every Thursday morning and on the third Saturday of each month. Visit forestparkconservancy.org to sign on.

3. No time to pull weeds? Lend a hand by keeping your feet—and your pets—on the trails. Wayward boots and off-leash pets cause erosion and transport the seeds of species such as garlic mustard.

Forest Park Guide: The Best Hikes

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0700

Image: Chris Pokorny

St. Johns Bridge

Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

BPA Road

Easy/see map T2/Hike #1
This wide-open, gently rolling double-track path leads to a grassy knoll with sweeping vistas of Mounts St. Helens and Rainier. At your feet, tugboats chug up the Willamette River. So named because the Bonneville Power Administration maintains a string of power lines here, BPA Road also visits a bronze-and-rock monument dedicated to donors who plugged the “Hole in the Park” by snatching a 70-acre plot from the jaws of developers through a cooperative effort of Metro, Friends of Forest Park, and the parks bureau during the 1990s. Toast their collective wisdom from a pair of picnic tables placed at the overlook.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Skyline Blvd, take BPA Road to Firelane 13. (Round trip: 2 miles)

Hero: John Olmsted

A fledgling Park Board hired Massachusetts park planner and ?designer John Charles Olmsted in 1903 to conceive an entire park system on par with Boston’s Emerald Necklace designed by his famed stepfather, Frederick Law Olmsted. In his report to the Park Board, Olmsted outlined a network of green spaces that included the first idea of a “Forest Park.” “Future generations . . . will be likely to appreciate the wild beauty . . . ?the grandeur of the trees, and view-commanding spurs far more than do the majority of the citizens of today .”

Lower Maple Trail loop
Moderate/see map L7/Hike #2
Tranquil canyons? Check. Gurgling water? Check. Oversize fallen log to kick back on? Check. Handy shortcut? Check. (The recently signed Quarry Trail creates a great loop from the lower Maple Trail.) The reasons to love this splendid three-mile circuit along the shade-draped lower Maple Trail just keep piling up. None is better than the junction atop Saltzman Road and Leif Erikson, which affords an eagle-eye overlook of the St. Johns Bridge and Mount St. Helens.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Saltzman Road off of Hwy 30, turn right on Maple Trail, left up Quarry Trail, and then right on Leif Erikson. Return via Maple Trail. (Round trip: 3 miles)

Ridge Trail
Moderate/see map O3/Hike #3
Savor an unforgettable glimpse of one of Portland’s most photogenic bridges at the bottom of the Ridge Trail. The narrow path drops nearly 1,000 vertical feet from Firelane 7, near Skyline Boulevard, amid the quiet, seldom-visited northeast section of the park. Just past Leif Erikson, pause to rest on a rough-hewn bench carved from a log, then exit the woods above Highway 30. Here maple and ninebark limbs frame a close-up portrait of the sea-green arches of the St. Johns Bridge towering over the Willamette.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Springville Road off of Skyline Blvd, follow Firelane 7 and turn left down the Ridge Trail. Return the same way. ?(Round trip: 2.76 miles)

Nature and Chestnut Trail Loop
Moderate/see map I5/Hike #15
Beat the heat—and the crowds—by slipping into two of Forest Park’s most scenic side trails. The lower half of the Nature Trail plunges into a narrow, shady canyon intersected by a cascading fork of Rocking Chair Creek. Brush past mini-waterfalls and velvety maidenhair ferns on the way to the base of the gully, where a small dam was constructed and a picnic table rests beneath a rare American chestnut tree. A few yards to the right of the tree, the Chestnut Trail climbs back into seclusion alongside a second cooling fork of Rocking Chair Creek.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Forest Lane off of NW 53rd Drive, take Firelane 1. Go left down Nature Trail to Leif Erikson. Turn up Chestnut Trail. Go left on Wildwood Trail to return to Firelane 1. (Round trip: 2.5 miles)

Image: Michael Novak

“Avenue of the Trees” on Firelane 7

Firelane 12
Moderate/see map U7/Hike #16
Stashed away on a dead-end lane in hilly Linnton, the entrance to Firelane 12 winds through what feels like a private empire of steep hillsides lined with slabs of basalt, oodles of ferns, white-barked ?alders, and mighty stands of firs. After a mile-long climb, the trail dips down to converge with Firelane 15. Here you’ll encounter Miller Creek, one of the park’s two trout-bearing streams. Continue up Firelane 12 to meet BPA Road, or linger streamside to watch the brook disappear into a green abyss of roots, leaves, and moss.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Creston Road in Linnton, ascend Firelane 12 to BPA Road. Return the same way. (Round trip: 3 miles)

Maple Trail
Moderate/see map L7/Hike #22
Little-known fact: Nearly three-quarters of the forest of Forest Park is bigleaf maples and red alders—not Douglas firs. Nowhere is this deciduous umbrella more delightful than along the aptly named Maple Trail. In fall, groves of bigleaf maples here rain down piles of crimson-and-gold leaves. But the Maple Trail hikes well in the dog days of summer, too. The 2.6-mile section between lower Saltzman Road and the Wildwood Trail bisects densely wooded canyons peppered with hemlocks and firs, and fords the shimmery waters of Saltzman Creek.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Saltzman Road off of Hwy 30, turn left up Maple Trail. Pass Maple Tie Trail and turn right on Wildwood Trail. Descend Koenig Trail and return via Maple Trail. (Round trip: 6 miles)

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Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

Firelane 15 Loop
Moderate /see map U1/Hike #19

Call it Forest Park’s last frontier. Perched at the park’s northern tip, Firelane 15 borders a power-line corridor that surveys Sauvie Island farmland and St. Helens’s snowy dome. To the west, a blanket of rugged blue hills unfurls to the Coast Range. Such remote topography is a solid bet for wildlife encounters. Park workers routinely spot coyote and black-tailed deer darting into the brush. Bobcat and elk tracks in the mud are not out of the question. And don’t miss the side trail from Fire-lane 15 to Keilhorn Meadow (to the right of the upper gate), a secluded, hemlock- and maple-fringed field—as pretty a place as any to listen for great horned owls.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Skyline Blvd, follow Firelane 15, cross over the Wildwood Trail, and turn up Firelane 12 to BPA Road. Go right on BPA Road. Turn right on Wildwood Trail. Return via Firelane 15. (Round trip: 2.8 miles)

Image: Mike Houck

Song sparrows are one of the nearly 120 different species of birds found in Forest Park.

Audubon Sanctuary Easy /see map F4/Hike #20
Keep a field guide handy inside the Audubon Society’s 150-acre reserve set just off of NW Cornell Road. More than 40 species of birds, including warblers, grosbeaks, and sparrows, have been recorded here. Bird-happy crowds typically head north from the parking area to the Pittock Bird Sanctuary. Here, an easy mile-long loop trail meanders along Balch Creek and encircles a pond scattered with lily pads. But the Founders Trail in the 34-acre Uhtoff Sanctuary is especially noteworthy. Nicknamed “Pileated Woodpecker Alley” it’s packed with abundant snags, a siren’s song to North America’s largest woodpecker. Still skunked on sightings? Tour the on-site Wildlife Care Center, home to Audubon’s fleet of educational birds, which include raptors and owls.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: Founders Trail to North Collins Trail and back to parking lot. (Round trip: 1.3 miles)

Firelane 7
Hard/see map O3/Hike #5
With an awning of curved alder limbs barreling above it, Firelane 7 has been dubbed “Avenue of the Trees.” But it’s also the park’s best path to wildflowers. This south-facing ridgeline trail basks in enough sun to entice prodigious tiger lily blooms, some several feet tall. In spring, the adjacent Trillium Trail is littered with thickets of its namesake blossom, followed by a procession of thimbleberries and huckleberries. For a sweet side trip, descend lower Hardesty Trail to visit “Big Stump,” a massive old-growth cedar nub that bears a pair of eye-like springboard notches cut into its trunk by early-20th-century loggers.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Springville Road off Skyline Blvd, take Firelane 7 to Trillium Trail and go right. Turn left on Wildwood Trail and continue to Hardesty Trail to return via Firelane 7. (Round trip: 3.4 miles)

Image: Mike Cottrell Houle

Balch Creek on the Lower Macleay trail is one of the two streams in Forest Park that support native cutthroat trout.

Villain: Lafe Pence

Notorious for hatching a scheme to buy land around Bull Run and the Sandy River so he could sell water to the city at exorbitant prices, Lafe Pence, a former Colorado congressman, dug a clandestine, two-mile system of ditches and aqueducts in Macleay Park in 1906. Pence wanted to hijack water from Balch Creek and use it to flush sediment from a large tract of land he wanted to level for development. His plan was thwarted when Mayor Harry Lane and a dozen police officers stormed the hillside and destroyed the flume with sledgehammers. Portions of Pence’s ditch are still visible near the intersection of the Wildwood and Wild Cherry Trails.

Firelane 9 Loop
Hard/see map Q5/Hike #21
The ravine cut by Linnton Creek must look like a giant feeding trough to hungry birds. Loaded with seed-rich red alders and bigleaf maples, the tucked-away canyon attracts scores of melodious western tanagers, orange-crowned warblers, and evening grosbeaks. At the hike’s halfway point, Firelane 10 zigzags through forest spotted with white oak, western red cedar, and even purple-hued Pacific yew, which sprouts bright red berries that prove irresistible to birds like the orange-breasted varied thrush. A recent hike offered a view of a red-tailed hawk swooping no more than 20 feet overhead.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From Leif Erikson trailhead off of NW Germantown Road, cross the road to Firelane 9. Descend to the town of Linnton and pick up the Linnton Trail. Turn left at Firelane 10 to return to trailhead. (Round trip: 2 miles)

Image: Michael Novak

Every quarter-mile of the 30-mile Wildwood Trail is marked by a blue diamond and mile markers.

Lower Macleay to Stone House
Easy/see map E8/Hike #17
Not even Crayola could box up so many shades of green. Set in a lush canyon alongside the cool waters of Balch Creek, the largest stream in Forest Park, Lower Macleay Trail is an explosion of licorice ferns, leafy salal bushes, moss-jacketed hemlocks, and some of the most impressive fir specimens in the park, including Portland’s most gasp-inducing heritage tree, a 242-foot, jade-crowned giant—the country’s tallest fir within a city. For more color, scope out the creek’s population of native cutthroat trout. Then explore the “Stone House,” the remains of a Works Progress Administration–era structure, built in 1936. Its lichen-coated walls make a killer fort for an afternoon.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Upshur Street follow Lower Macleay Trail for one mile. (Round trip: 2 miles)

Tolinda Trail to Waterline
Hard/see map Q7/Hike #9
The Tolinda Trail takes its name from the sight of a former Camp Fire Girls camp in the park. But make no mistake: this is one tough cookie of a hike. In less than a mile, the route vaults nearly 400 feet up to Leif Erikson. Temper first-degree thigh burns by enjoying bright blazes of fireweed, numerous lilies, and a welcome shot of solitude. To earn a merit badge for pluck, proceed up the Waterline Trail, a steep, often muddy route that ascends along a ridge to a water tower set in a sun-soaked meadow atop Skyline Boulevard.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Germantown Road, take Tolinda Trail. Go left at Leif Erikson and up Waterline Trail. Return the same way. (Round trip: 3 miles)

Park Inspirations: Peter Rock

Reed professor and author of My Abandonment, a fictional novel inspired by the true story of a girl and her father found living in Forest Park

Image: Emily Tate

Forest Park is like Portland’s version of the ocean. It’s dark and mysterious, and we can’t always see what’s going on underneath. When I was writing my book, I really wanted to spend a night in the park. Friends said I shouldn’t. They said it might be dangerous because people live in the woods. If I did, I should be armed. So I never did. People who haven’t been to the park ask me, did I make this up? How could there be this place that’s so close to the city, and so wild? I like the area by St. Johns, because there’s this intersection between wilderness and industry, and because most people don’t go there. I have two daughters. I take them to the park. They love it. I definitely have to keep them contained. Otherwise, I think they might turn wild. —As told to Brian Barker

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Image: Michael Byers

Download a printable version of a map of Forest Park and a guide to all the hikes, runs, and bikes.

Wildwood–Newton Loop
Easy/see map R4 /Hike #18
Trees do fantastic things on this bite-size loop deep in the park’s dewy, northern interior. Just before the 26-mile mark of the Wildwood, a hollowed-out fir can fit pint-size nature-lovers inside its belly. Nearby, inspect a large stump festooned with Frisbee-size mushrooms. A few steps farther, a fir’s roots rise out of the dirt like a house on stilts and create a tunnel to scamper beneath. For a crescendo, pass by a maple whose clutch of trunks resembles the tentacles of a giant squid. Like we said—fantastic.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Newton Road parking lot off of Skyline Blvd, follow Newton Road and turn right on first path to Wildwood Trail. Head south on Wildwood. Turn right on Firelane 10 to return. (Round trip: about 1 mile)

Newton Road to Wildwood Trail
Hard/see map T2/Hike #12
Turn northwest onto the Wildwood Trail from Newton Road, and the forest suddenly becomes eerily still. The hushed tone comes courtesy of the park’s remnant old-growth stands. The next half-mile holds smatterings of firs capable of gouging the clouds. Be prepared to earn your visitation, though. The arduous climb up Newton Road is one of the toughest in the park. It’s also gorgeous, traversing a remote, stream-filled ravine. Lazy-bones option: park at the Newton Road Trailhead off NW Skyline Boulevard and walk less than a mile to the Wildwood Trail.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From BPA Road off NW Skyline Blvd, descend to Newton Road. Go up Newton to Wildwood Trail and go right. Return via BPA Road. (Round trip: 4.4 miles)

Lower Macleay to Pittock Mansion
Hard/see map E8/Hike #8
This lung-pumping scramble gains 800 feet of elevation during a 2.5-mile trek to one of Portland’s most iconic residences, Pittock Mansion. The former Oregonian publisher Henry Pittock’s 22-room French Renaissance wonder is a stunner, with flower-strewn gardens and commanding gazes of the Cascades and all of Portland. Still, all that opulence doesn’t quite measure up to the grandeur of the gargantuan trees encountered below the manor. Inside tip: to avoid the masses at Lower Macleay, ascend to Wildwood Trail via the short but challenging Tunnel Trail (along NW Cornell Road).
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Upshur Street, take Lower Macleay Trail to Wildwood Trail. Take Wildwood toward NW Cornell Road and up to Pittock Mansion. Return the same way. (Round trip: 5 miles)

Image: Michael Novak

Linchen and licorice ferns are abundant on trees in Forest Park.

Wildwood Trail, Miles 12–16
Hard/see map M2/Hike #13
Titanic trees and distance from civilized roads are the top draws on this must-hit section of the Wildwood Trail. At mile 16 enter the Wildwood along a fern-choked ridge that’s stacked with handsome stands of younger conifers. At mile 15.75 begin looking for stop-a-minute views of Mount Hood and Mount Adams. And past Firelane 3, between mile points 13.5 and 12.5, ogle several inspiring sequoia-size firs.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Saltzman Road off of Skyline Blvd, walk one mile to the intersection of Wildwood Trail (mile 16) and turn right. Continue to mile 12. Return same way. (Round trip: 10 miles)

Wildwood Trail from Newberry Road
Easy/see map V3/Hike #14
Curious what Forest Park looked like 200 years ago? The northern reaches of the Wildwood Trail provide a vivid picture. From Newberry Road the trail plunges into a primordial world ruled by giant sword ferns and groves of behemoth western red cedars with patinas like ancient works of bronze. Occasional blooms of fairy lanterns and false lily of the valley spice up the evergreen palette.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW Newberry Road, take Wildwood Trail south to Firelane 15. Return the same way. (Round trip: 3 miles)

Dogwood trail
Easy/see map G5/Hike #4
Early bloomers along the sun-?dappled Dogwood include yellow woodland violets and scores of trilliums. Come summer, candy flowers, fairy bells, and false Solomon’s seal, which perfume the air with fragrant, starlike blossoms, crop up. Keep an eye to the sky, though. Overhead, amid leafy maples and slender firs, red-capped downy woodpeckers busily tap away on tree stumps and, beyond the branches, peekaboo views of Mount Hood and Portland’s skyline abound.
SUGGESTED ROUTE: From NW 53rd Drive, take Dogwood Trail. Turn left on Leif Erikson and go left up Alder Trail. Turn left on Wildwood Trail. Return via Keil Trail. (Round trip: 3 miles)

Park Inspirations: Yassine Diboun

Competitive ultramarathoner and professional running coach who trains in Forest Park nearly every day

Image: Emily Tate

I’m a blend of someone who needs to be deep in nature but also likes urban life. I often run the Wildwood Trail from end to end—someone will drop me off on Newberry Road and I’ll do 30 miles and end up at the door of my apartment building. For me, running is about connection to the landscape and nature. It’s about getting lost—not literally, but lost in a different, more primal kind of consciousness. Running through the woods evokes something that has been passed down for thousands of years, and living near the park allows me to go to those wild places, where I can push myself beyond what I think I’m capable of. —As told to Zach Dundas

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