Forest Park

Due to limitations of footwear (not MINE, of course, I wore mah hikin bouts) in tandem with typical OR spring ground (meaning muddy), we spent about five minutes on Wildwood Trail at Germantown Road in Forest Park. Its 5,100 acres make Forest Park the largest natural urban forest reserve in the U.S. And apparently its size made it possible for a man & his daughter to live within its boundaries undectected for four years (it's a pretty neat story, with an actual Happy End).

Five minutes proved to be ample time for me to fall in LOVE with the place. It's fucking gorgeous. Quintessential Oregon. Old growth & second growth trees, ferns, trilliums...& just flat-out beautiful. Naturally I'd forgotten both my digital & super-8 cameras. However, I've plans to return this week sometime, at which point I will correct that grievous error. With 70 miles of trails, there's a lot of exploring to be done.

Also, apparently the Wildwood Trail will lead you straight to the Hoyt Arboretum, a 185-acre piece of land, with 12 miles of trails, which has been planted with over 1,000 species of trees, perhaps most notably the Dawn Redwood, a species once thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in China in the early 20th century. This tree is a deciduous conifer, of all things. I'm nerdily excited to go to the Arboretum.

Thank goodness that the people of Portland were concerned about the importance of city parks as far back as 1903.