Forest Park

15.5 miles of hiking • 1500' elevation gain •

Had absolutely no interest (or stomach) for participating in the national media obsession du jour, so on this very gloomy day for the USA, decided that a nice, long walk in the woods was exactly what was called for. Fittingly, the woods were fairly gloomy too, as they were just beginning to recover from the most recent Snopocalypse.

It was my first time hiking in Forest Park, really. And I'll say it lived right up to all my expectations for muddy trails and invasive species. But it was relaxing and rejuvenating at the same time, to just walk mile after mile in the rain, paying little attention to the pervasive wetness. I'll be exploring this area more in the future, I suppose.

This day, we started at Lower Macleay Park, followed the Wildwood for what seemed like quite a ways, cut downhill on the Maple Trail, and then followed Lief Erickson Drive back to our starting point. Lesson learned, Lief Erickson is much shorter than it looks on the maps, compared to the other trails out there. Give it less weight when calculating turnaround times and distances.

View the resource page used for this triphttps://www.portlandoregon.gov/parks/finder/index.cfm?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=127