Forest Park
On a 1903 visit to Portland, landscape designer John Olmsted (son of Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park) drew up a city park plan calling for “a succession of ravines and spurs covered with remarkably beautiful woods.” His recommendation led to the establishment of 5,000-acre Forest Park in 1948. One of the largest urban parks in North America, this forest is part of a 9,000-acre park system that forms a wildlife corridor to the Coast Range, dividing the Willamette Valley from the Pacific Ocean. The park is home to more than 50 species of mammals—including elk, deer and rarely seen bobcats—and about 150 species of birds. Some 50 miles of interconnected hiking trails wind up and down the slopes of Forest Park, where a canopy of towering Douglas firs rises above an understory of alders, aspens, hemlock, holly, and maidenhair and sword ferns. White trilliums glow along the paths in the spring. The 33-mile-long Wildwood Trail connects Forest Park to Washington Park and the Hoyt Arboretum in Southwest Portland. A few old-growth trees can be found behind the Portland Audubon Society (5151 NW Cornell Rd.; www.audubonportland.org; 📞 503/292-6855).
On a 1903 visit to Portland, landscape designer John Olmsted (son of Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park) drew up a city park plan calling for “a succession of ravines and spurs covered with remarkably beautiful woods.” His recommendation led to the establishment of 5,000-acre Forest Park in 1948. One of the largest urban parks in North America, this forest is part of a 9,000-acre park system that forms a wildlife corridor to the Coast Range, dividing the Willamette Valley from the Pacific Ocean. The park is home to more than 50 species of mammals—including elk, deer and rarely seen bobcats—and about 150 species of birds. Some 50 miles of interconnected hiking trails wind up and down the slopes of Forest Park, where a canopy of towering Douglas firs rises above an understory of alders, aspens, hemlock, holly, and maidenhair and sword ferns. White trilliums glow along the paths in the spring. The 33-mile-long Wildwood Trail connects Forest Park to Washington Park and the Hoyt Arboretum in Southwest Portland. A few old-growth trees can be found behind the Portland Audubon Society (5151 NW Cornell Rd.; www.audubonportland.org; 📞 503/292-6855).
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