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| photo credit: Jule Gilfillan / OPB |
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
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| 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.
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| Scarlet Elf Cap Mushrooms |
Later we found angel wings and various coral mushrooms in addition to the garden variety of polypores, conks and Little Brown Mushrooms that weren't so easy to identify. This would be my least favorite section of the trail. It was the least busy, had little elevation gain, the worst/least views, and my youngest cried the whole last hour because her feet were tired. Apart from the mushrooms, there was little variety in the trail; plenty of maples, a few cedars and probably a million sword ferns. Between Mile 23 and 22 (every quarter mile is marked with a blue diamond and a mileage placard) we left the Wildwood to hike back up Springville Rd to my car. This was the steepest part of the hike, and the only part that felt worth doing at the time. Leg one complete.
Day 2a - Springville Road trailhead to Firelane 2 (MI12.5) - 10.1 miles
December 12, 2023: Planned to go hike part two, but my car got stolen. For more details, see my previous post here
Day 2b - Springville Road trailhead to Firelane 2 (MI12.5) - 10.1 miles
December 21, 2023: For real this time. The whole family came along for the second leg. It was a little longer, but mostly flat so I figured we'd be okay. The trail was more interesting on this leg, though on the whole, it was very similar. There were more viewpoints, though often still obscured by trees, and the trail ran around huge draws. My eldest daughter would frequently get bored of waiting for her shorter-legged sisters and stride ahead. We would often see her across one of these little valleys, but it would be ten minutes or more of walking before we could get to where she had been when we spotted her. This section of the trail was comparatively empty as well and the greying weather opened up to a wispy blue in the early afternoon. The two sections that were listed as closed, were passable with very little difficulty; instead of a wooden bridge, we walked down some steps in the turf and leapfrogged over a creek. My youngest cried for the last hour. Eventually we found Firelane 2 and climbed our way out of the valley. Again, this was the steepest part of the hike, to the point of being challenging. Second leg done, happy Winter Solstice to us.
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Day 3 - Firelane 2 to Zoo (MI 0.0) to N Killingsworth Max station - 13 miles
December 26, 2023: I got wise and only brought my eldest daughter along for this leg. I knew it would be the longest, and she didn't seem bothered by the previous two legs. My wife dropped the two of us off at Firelane 2 in some moderate rain. This was to be the worst weather of the day; from then on it was overcast but mostly dry though it could be difficult to tell under so much canopy. Around milepost 12 we took a detour encouraged by some very serious-looking signs. It took us north on the Chestnut trail to Leif Erikson Drive, then southeast on the Nature trail back to the Wildwood. We looked back at the forbidden section and saw a muddy sunken bridge, but a fellow hiker stepping right past the supposedly "impassable" trail hazard. We dropped down towards Balch Creek and stopped for lunch at the Witch's Castle, easily the most crowded section of the whole journey. Crossing the creek, we began the most sustained uphill section of the trail through my springtime favorite, the Pollinator Gardens at Cornell Road. Continuing the uphill trend, we climbed up towards the Pittock Mansion, which we skipped this time. The parking lot was swarming with cars looking for things to do after Christmas and we figured the view probably wasn't that good from the lawn, and anyway we'd seen it before, and sour grapes not withstanding, we skipped it. Beyond the mansion was the strangest and most varied sections we'd come across yet. Totally abandoned looking roads with ancient graffiti. A strange and cool pedestrian bridge over Burnside Road, miles of the Hoyt Arboretum once we'd left Forest Park. That's right, the Wildwood went on for an additional three miles once we were out of the park. The Redwood observation deck was very cool, but also very crowded, relatively speaking. We wandered behind the Japanese Garden, through Washington Park's archery range, and at last to the end/beginning of the Wildwood.
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From here it was a short walk to the elevators at the Oregon Zoo leading down into the chthonic MAX tunnels, which we rode downtown, transferred at Pioneer Square, then disembarked at the Killingsworth Max station, a mere 2.4 miles from the house. Rachel was kind enough to pick us up.
https://lauraofoster.medium.com/hiking-the-wildwood-3-days-at-2-miles-per-hour-f245191d47fb
https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Wildwood_Traverse_Hike
https://www.portland.gov/documents/forest-park-trails-printable-mappdf/download
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