Three Days on the Wildwood Trail

photo credit: Jule Gilfillan / OPB

    When I turned 40 a few years ago, I decided I needed a mid-life crisis goal. Living in Portland, OR, it's pretty easy to look around while driving and see Mt Hood. Summiting it seemed like an achievable challenge. I took a friend out to dinner who had been up it and routinely volunteered in mountain rescue. She gave me a list of trails to hike in order to train myself for the physical and mental exertion the mountain required. She also mentioned that the best time of year to go up was May and June. She said she'd be willing to climb it with me, but since it was already mid-March, this might not be the right year for it considering the gear and training I would need. 

    Starting that summer, I went out hiking every week, all year long. Sometimes it's difficult to find something nearby that I hadn't hiked recently and also within my comfort zone. 

    This last December, I decided I should walk all 30 miles of the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park. There are plenty of stories of people running it in one horrible day, but I found a blog post (here) describing a hike split into three legs. I knew I wouldn't be able to duplicate this timeline since I don't have three full days off in a row, but if I talked a friend into driving too, we could do it in heats as traverse hikes. Both drivers roll up to one trailhead, leave one car and get into the other, then drive together to the second trailhead. Once the hike is complete, they both get into the first car then drive back to the first trailhead, split up and drive home separately. This is how we used to tube rivers in the summer, so why couldn't it work for hiking?

    With my free time limited to one day a week, I decided we could do the three days over the course of several weeks during the month of December. I've done portions of the Wildwood before, but always found it a little boring compared to many of the hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or on the shoulders of Mt Hood. No waterfalls, no stunning panoramas, no dangerous river crossings, not even a talus slope to scramble across. What it does have is miles and miles of trails within a half-hour drive of the house. In the past I saved the Wildwood for those days when a high wind advisory or a blizzard made more interesting hikes unavailable. December would be perfect for this project since it's usually a rainy month in the Northwest. 

Day 1 - Wildwood Newberry trailhead to Springville Road trailhead (MI22.1) - 7.5 miles

Newberry Trailhead

    December 7, 2023: I roped my friend John into the first leg. My eldest and youngest daughters also came along. John and I used to drive the same mini-van, but of late his Sienna was moving towards retirement. When he showed up in his new Subaru, my daughters were afraid to get in, since they might get dirt on his floor mats. This might be a sort of window into what it's like growing up with me for a dad. Sometimes they'll ask permission to drink water in my car. Fault me if you think it fair, but you haven't seen the way they drink. Anyways, we parked my car at the trailhead down Springville Rd off Skyline Blvd, piled into John's new, clean, (white!) Forester and headed for the end of the line. I had decided to take the trail backwards since parking in Washington Park can be expensive, especially if you're there for six-plus hours. Once we arrived at the Newberry trailhead, the mile countdown began. It was overcast, and we had 15 minutes of pretty serious rain, but it was generally lovely weather for a vigorous walk. We weren't 200 feet down the trail before we started identifying mushrooms. First off was a tiny gash in root in the middle of the trail, full of scarlet elf cups.

Merry Christmas 2023

 

Elbow On Desk, Hand Rubbing Forehead

    During the winter, I'm frequently looking for places to walk that aren't under several inches of snow. This month, I've been trying to cover the entire Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, which is a little under 30 miles from end to end. We did the first leg last week, which ran from the end of the trail at Newberry Road to a side trail down Springville Rd, which was only about seven and a half miles on paper. By doing it in segments with more than one driver, the idea was to drop off a car at each end, so we don't have to double back. Yesterday, we had planned to do the second leg, probably from the trailhead off Springville to the Forest Lane trailhead. This would be about 11 miles, but easy enough as it looks pretty flat on the elevation change map. We were packing up to drop the kids off at school before heading out to the trail and my phone started ringing. No one calls this early. Caller ID showed Lake Oswego. I don't know anyone there. I didn't answer. It immediately started ringing again. The third time I answer. It was the Lake O police department. They said my car was running in the middle of a residential street and could I come pick it up? Nah, my car is parked right out in front of my...Fuck. I looked out the window. There was the car door handle sitting on the ground where I had parked the previous morning.

    So we dropped the very emotional kids off at school, then drove down to the address the police had given me. There she was, doors open, lights on, running strong. No door handle, paint a little scratched here and there, but otherwise externally OK. Inside were several pairs of shoes, one airpod in a case for two, a bottle of perfume, a couple bottles of water, and most of the stuff I had left in the car: a child booster seat, my sunglasses, the USB charger cable for my phone, a large Ka-Bar knife, the owner's manual, and the disassembled parts of my steering column. 

    Missing were the CDs. The Wipers - Over the Edge and a case of burned CDs that were all the mixtapes Racheous had made for me while we were dating. 

Curiously Named Locales: Matagorda, Texas

Photo credit: Matagorda Tourism

    I have a shower curtain with a map on it. Featuring most of North America, it focuses on lines formed by river channels instead of states. It's always worth investigating as I sit on my throne, doing what even the king must do for himself. One odd place name that caught my eye is Matagorda, Texas. My rudimentary knowledge of Spanish led me to a strange translation. Is this island/county really "Kill the Fat Girl"? A little research indicates that some confusion exists between the Texas State Historical Association, which translates the name as "thick brush", and the Matagorda Chamber of Commerce, which prefers "fat kill".

    According to Wikipedia,  the county is named for the canebrakes that once grew along the coast (matagorda is a Spanish word meaning "thick bush"). The Texas State Historical Association mentions that the county is crossed by the formerly flood-prone SE-bound Colorado River. 

    Per the Matagorda Chamber of Commerce, the city was named by Elias R Wightman, a surveyor who moved about 60 settlers into the area. The Chamber of Commerce mentions that the name, translated as "fat kill", refers to the abundant game and seafood, or possibly a "fat mott" which they define as a fat clump of trees. 

Sources:
Texas State Historical Association

Matagorda Chamber of Commerce

Wikipedia: Matagorda County, Texas