1/19/2015

It’s Monday morning.  The alarm goes off at 6:30am. I hit snooze a few times. I’m out the door by 7:15a. Home by 5:45p.  This is a typical work day for me.  But this time I had the day off, so on the same schedule I instead went to Forest Park hiked the Wildwood trail…all of it.

Forest Park is a gigantic and for the most part, surprisingly wild park  in Northwest Portland.  The Wildwood Trail is the park’s longest, totaling 30.1 miles. I know it is this long because there is a mile mark literally every 1/4 mile.  It’s a nicely graded and maintained trail. Nearly every intersection has a maps of the entire Park with a “you are here” indicator.  It’s also pretty boring – mostly flat, winding in and out of every little draw with the same view of ferns and moss and trees the entire time.

I started at the northern/wesatern end, at Newberry Road, leaving my car at the “trailhead”, which is really just a wide shoulder of the road.   In the first 25 miles, I saw maybe 20 people, mostly runners or people out walking their dogs.  The last 5 miles, close in to town, was super crowded with folks out for a stroll, kids and dogs in tow.

I finished in just under 9 hours – the entire hike in daylight!  A few hundred feet from the southern terminus, I hopped onto the train, transferred to a bus, and got off a few hundred feet from my front door.  I love Portland!

Next up on my Urban Adventures list: All 7 of Portland’s SW Urban Trails.