We’ve been seeking out obscure hikes in the metro area over the past few months of being quarantined. This week marked ten weeks for me of being home, ten weeks of not leaving the metro area, ten weeks of extremely hard work at my day job. Most weekends I’ve been too tired to do much more than go hiking for a half-day and then go home and relax. Once a week I go for a nice bike ride along the Springwater Corridor, or in my neighborhood. Other than that, it’s been work, cooking, drinking wine and a lot of reading.
I wrote about some of our adventures in pandemic hiking in a recent blog post. We are fortunate to have so many beautiful parks close to home. But after weeks of exploring many of the same areas, we were both eager to go somewhere new.
I had seen reference to some Metro lands north of Forest Park in James D. Thayer’s 2008 hiking guidebook Portland Forest Hikes: 20 Close-In Wilderness Walks. These hikes tend to be short, and as far as we could get from the metro area while still being close to home. I figured we could cobble together a few short hikes and make at least a half-day of quiet hiking. It ended up being so, at least until I got a pretty intense headache, and we decided to go home and just have lunch.
We started out looking for a hike known as the Beaver Ponds Loop. Wendy and I did this hike sometime a very long time ago, and I remember being decent, but not super exciting. We arrived at the trailhead only to find a large group of cyclists getting ready for some adventure, and we decided to go somewhere else. So we drove back south on US 30 until we reached NW McNamee Road, which we followed until we reached the unofficial Burlington Creek Trailhead. Much to our surprise, there were a few cars parked already, and another that arrived about 30 seconds after us.
It felt good to get back out on the trail, even if that trail happened to be an abandoned logging road. Lupine grows profusely along the road in open areas:
The road passes through some lovely second-growth forest. Everything was incredibly green! Along with the abundant wildflowers, spring’s green forests is my favorite thing about spring. Most of the hike looked like this:
Through the dark, verdant forests north of Forest Park.
We didn’t come into this hike expecting to see much in the way of wildflowers, so we were pleasantly surprised to encounter a few favorites:
The road winds around through the green forest, offering occasional breaks out with views across the Willamette River to north Portland and Vancouver. I suppose there might even be views of the Cascades here, but the promised sunshine and blue skies never materialized. Mostly we just walked along through the forest, and it was lovely. Here’s one more photo:
This full loop ended up being only 3.3 miles round-trip, so not nearly as long as we would have liked. At some point we’ll have to get out for a longer hike, but that will be further away, and perhaps when I’m less exhausted. Here’s a map of our hike:
We were looking for another short hike so we drove south to Newberry Road, and then followed directions to another short hike in the Thayer Guide. As we drove up Newberry Road, we counted more than 25 cars parked along the side of the road at the northern end of the Wildwood Trail (a hike featured in PDX Hiking 365). As we drove by, a few more cars were attempting to park along the road. I think this was the moment we decided that we need to leave the city soon. It has become almost impossible to find a hike that’s quiet enough for our standards.
Anyway: we arrived at the McCarthy Creek Trailhead, which is located along Skyline Boulevard just after you turn off Newberry Road. This is what the trailhead looks like:
Don’t block the gate, obviously.
The hike passes along the edges of McCarthy Creek’s basin. This tract of land was acquired by Metro maybe ten years ago, and is labeled on some maps as part of Forest Park. The trail is a gravel road which loops through a forest, passing the occasional view north towards the Tualatin Mountains. While there were not any other cars at the trailhead, we did pass a runner and his dog, as well as a family on our hike; I would guess this is a place that people who live along Skyline Boulevard come to go for a walk. The forest was pretty mundane, but it was nice to be out just the same:
About halfway through the McCarthy Creek loop, my head began to ache. I’m not sure if it was fatigue, too much coffee, or if it was just a headache for no reason whatsoever. By the time we neared the trailhead at the end of our loop, it was as bad a headache as I’ve had in a long time. When we got back to the car I took a couple of aspirin and we started the drive home. Needless to say, I don’t think I need to hike the McCarthy Creek Loop again.
Now, don’t get me wrong: this was a nice little loop on a wide gravel road. I just wasn’t feeling it. The loop ended up being only 1.3 miles round-trip. There were a couple of junctions where it looked like you could extend the hike, but nothing here was interesting enough to make me want to go explore. Or it could have just been the headache.
Anyway, here’s a map of the hike:
It’s been ten weeks since we last left the metro area. We have enjoyed our time at home as best we can, and have made the most of it. Our garden looks amazing, we have finished almost all of our projects around the house, and we’ve been cooking some absolutely delicious food (follow me on Instagram if you want to see a lot of pictures of food and cats…and hikes, when I’m able to do them). But I think we’re ready to get out and do a little exploring.
In the meantime, I’ll continue writing about some of my favorite adventures here. And maybe, just maybe…something more will come from this writing. We shall see.