TRAILHEAD North side of 4315 NW St. Helens Road
DISTANCE 4.9 miles round trip
DURATION Two hours and thirty minutes
ELEVATION A total change of 880 feet, with a low point of 50 feet and a high point of 930 feet
CONDITIONS The lower portions of this trail can be muddy in the wet seasons, but mostly the trail is a stony roadway with steep inclines. There is some evidence of homeless bivouacking near the trailhead on St. Helens Road.
FROM DOWNTOWN This hike begins 3.6 miles from West Burnside and Interstate 405. Travel north on Highway 30 (also called St. Helens Road). Drive past the Burlington Northern/Southern Pacific rail yard all the way to the intersection with NW Kittridge Avenue and St. Helens Road. Turn left, heading south on St. Helens Road. Immediately after entering this road, pull off to the right beside the chain-link fence at Brazil Electric Motors (4315 NW St. Helens Road). Along the north side of this business you will see an undeveloped parcel with a dirt track ascending the wooded hillside. That’s the trailhead.
TriMet: From downtown, take bus 17 (NW 21st Avenue/St. Helens Road) and disembark at NW Yeon and Kittridge (bus stop 5337).
ALTERNATE ROUTE If you prefer to enter this hike from the top, here’s how to access the trailhead on Fire Lane 1: Head east on NW Lovejoy Street, which turns northward after NW 25th Avenue and becomes NW Cornell Road. Follow this scenic road through the tunnels and up the Balch Creek Canyon. The second right turn (after the Audubon Society of Portland) is NW Thompson Road. Follow this road for about a mile, and turn into NW 53rd Drive. Immediately after entering 53rd, look for a long driveway on the left. Drive straight up this road. Various homes have access via this road, but it soon turns into a pothole-riddled dirt road that penetrates the park for quite a distance. Park at the end, near the gate, and enter the park. The upper portion of Fire Lane 1 is fairly level, meandering through a grove of quite tall Douglas firs before descending 100 feet in elevation and crossing the Wildwood Trail. Continuing on another 100 yards will lead you to the meadow mentioned in waypoints 9 and 10.
I often walk this trail when time is short and the sky (at least at lower elevations) is clear enough that I can enjoy panoramic views of North Portland, Swan Island, and the industrial portion of Northwest Portland that shares the horizon with Mount Hood. Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams are also clearly visible to the north, as is much of the commercial river and rail traffic that throngs this part of town. This neighborhood has a gritty kind of beauty, and the Fire Lane 1 Loop allows you to gaze down over it from the solitude of a remote forested trail.
The lower end of Fire Lane 1 begins at the junction of St. Helens Road and Yeon Avenue. The trail can be accessed from the lot just north of Brazil Electric Motors on St. Helens Road. At the back end of that lot you’ll spot a rough track curving to the right up the slope. Follow the track 50 feet further up the slope, and the trail turns left and climbs steeply uphill for another 50 feet.
This is definitely among the least-traveled trails at the southern end of Forest Park. Not for long, though: Portland Parks and Recreation plans to build a park entrance here that will undoubtedly increase the traffic on this seldom-used trail. This access point also serves some of the transient community who make their homes in the lower portions of Forest Park during the warmer months. I’ve never encountered any denizens “living rough,” but I’ve stumbled across at least a half-dozen camps located along the several noticeable side trails.
Despite the clandestine camps, this trail offers hidden beauty that is well worth the steep climb—and steep it is, rising from about 50 feet in elevation to over 900 feet in less than 2 miles. You may encounter a mountain biker or two, but runners typically eschew such a slope.
Just above the entrance the trail doubles back and begins to head north. Ignore the paths heading south and proceed north on the trail, which parallels a local set of power lines and an impenetrable blackberry thicket on the left. Over the first half mile the trail rises from 50 feet to about 300 feet, dipping back to 200 feet in the second half-mile stretch. All the time you’re skirting the very bottom of the thickly wooded slopes of lower Forest Park, an area rich in wildlife.
No other American city has as large a contiguous urban park as Portland, and none can boast a wildlife corridor that allows beavers, coyotes, hawks, and deer—and sometimes even bears, cougars, and elk—to wander into the urban fabric. Portland Parks and Recreation has taken pains to slow and reverse the growing pressure of urbanization on this corridor, resisting development of private parcels inside the park and restricting the development of most of the trail system to the slopes above Leif Erikson Drive. As a consequence the lower elevations, such as this portion of the hike, constitute the main habitat area for larger mammals in the park.
This rising and dipping trail is one of the few that traverses these secluded slopes. As you follow it northward, take care to keep your eager hound from bounding up the slope after the delicious scent of elusive deer.
This lower portion of the trail comes to an abrupt halt about a mile from the start, at a promontory directly above Saltzman Road. To the north of this promontory is a steep valley that accommodates Saltzman Creek and Saltzman Road.
In the summer of 2004, during one of my periodic bushwhacking adventures, I had an interesting experience on Saltzman Creek. Following human tracks up the creek, I discovered occasional examples of artistry at work in the wilds: stream rocks had been carefully cemented together to form little cairns over the brook. Eventually I came to a rudimentary rock dam that produced a lovely small pool. Below the pool an elaborate stone castle of cemented rocks sat athwart the stream, and a hammock stretched above. A little way up the slope I could just barely make out a dwelling built into the hillside. A cozier hideaway couldn’t be imagined! I left this sylvan Shangri-la as quietly as I had entered.
Later that same summer, park rangers raided the illegal, half-buried dwelling and found a man and his daughter living there. It took the rangers and teams of work-release laborers a week to haul 4800 pounds of material from this impromptu home in the Saltzman ravine. The police officer presiding over the dismantling of the camp offered the man and his daughter shelter on a ranch, but they disappeared a week later. It’s quite possible that they’re back in the park, perhaps more deeply hidden this time.
From the promontory above Saltzman Creek, the trail takes a sharp turn to the left and for the next half mile climbs steadily through a mature stand of mixed hemlock and Douglas fir until it reaches Leif Erikson Drive. From its start to its intersection with Leif Erikson, this route ascends more than 550 feet in elevation within 1.5 miles; it should take about forty-five minutes to climb.
From the Leif Erikson gate, turn right and enjoy a leisurely stroll along Leif Erikson Drive. This meandering road, which traverses the Tualatin Mountains at about 600 feet elevation, was built in 1910 by land developer Richard Shepherd. He had hoped to encourage a large-scale development and laid out a vast number of lots across the hillside, but the expected land boom never materialized, and eventually these properties were forfeited to the city. In the end the city acquired some 1400 acres, and more were later relinquished to city ownership after being logged.
This is one of the nicest stretches of Leif Erikson Drive, especially as it offers clear, open vistas across the wooded forest. On the left you’ll see the great walls of basalt that form the bedrock of this area.
Follow the road (not quite so heavily trafficked at this point) for about a quarter of a mile to the back of the valley, where Leif Erikson Drive doubles back to continue on its northward route. Here you’ll find two small streams converging from parallel ravines. A trail runs up each stream: the Nature Trail ascends the left fork, while the Chestnut Trail climbs the right fork.
For a slightly longer walk you could take the Chestnut Trail, a pretty little trek that ascends a narrow ravine to join the Wildwood Trail another 300 feet higher up the slope. From there the Wildwood Trail leads southeast to where it intersects with Fire Lane 1.
This hike, however, follows the shorter route and ascends the Nature Trail. This lovely meandering trail is somewhat oddly named—it certainly has lots of nature on display, but as to why it’s more natural than the other trails, it beats me!
If you keep a sharp eye open you might spot a creamy white mass attached to the base of a conifer. Looking like a compact pile of noodles from 6 inches to 3 feet in diameter, the cauliflower mushroom (Sparassis crispa, synonym S. radicata) can weigh as much as 50 pounds.
As you walk further up the Nature Trail, paralleling the small creek, you can’t avoid spotting numerous sword ferns, which Northwest Indians called the pala-pala plant. Indian children would see how many leaflets they could pull off a stem, while saying “pala” for each one. The stems were used as protective layers in pit ovens, food storage boxes, and on berry-drying racks, and were even used for flooring and bedding. These larger sword ferns were also gathered in early spring by many coastal tribes and set aside as starvation food.
Cauliflower mushroom (Sparassis crispa)
Further up the ravine and closer to the water you will find my favorite fern, the lovely maidenhair. This fern, with its few black stems and palmately branched leaflets, grows in very moist, shady, rocky sites, often near the spray of waterfalls. I love to let my hand brush through soft colonies of maidenhair ferns as they cluster alongside some misty corner of a ravine. Apparently the name derives from either the dark, hairlike stems or the tangle of dark root hairs at their base. In Europe this delicate fern was traditionally mixed with sugar to make an emetic cough syrup called capillaire. Pacific Northwest Indians used it in a drink to promote strength for dancers. It was also used in basketry by some tribes in Washington.
Shortly after the Nature Trail turns to climb up and away from the small brook, it intersects with a short connector trail that allows access to the Wildwood Trail, which passes close by. The Wildwood Trail parallels the Nature Trail and connects with Fire Lane 1 further up the slope. We will not take this branch but will continue along the Nature Trail, paralleling the Wildwood Trail above.
Eventually, after much winding in and out of small ravines, the Nature Trail emerges into a small meadow. Walk to the top of the meadow and above you will see Fire Lane 1 descending into the park from 53rd Drive. To the left you will see Fire Lane 1 continue down the slope.
At the crest of the hill above you is the northern edge of the Balch Creek watershed. This is one of the most heavily protected watersheds in the Portland area. Since 1989, when it became apparent that stringent efforts were needed to preserve this unique natural area in Portland’s urban core, enormous efforts have been made to limit development and restore critical habitat along Balch Creek. Old-growth giants still tower above Cornell Road, and Balch Creek boasts its own landlocked population of cutthroat trout. But things were not always thus . . .
One of the most infamous tales of nefarious doings in Forest Park played out in this very valley. In 1905 Lafe Pence, a developer recently arrived from Denver, concocted an audacious plan to level a large tract of land between Macleay Park and Willamette Heights. The plan was to sluice off a large terraced area for residences and to wash the soil down into Guilds Lake, which was located between what is now St. Helens Road and Yeon Avenue.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the enterprising Mr. Pence managed to build over 6000 feet of an elaborate system of aqueducts and ditches that supplied water to his hydraulicking operations inside Macleay Park. To supplement the flow of Balch Creek, he even tunneled under the Skyline Ridge of the Tualatin Mountains to tap streams flowing down the western slope. Along the northern slope of Balch Creek he built a 4-foot-wide wooden flume that was sufficient to flush the entire seasonal flow of Balch Creek down the hillside and into Guilds Lake. All of this enormous construction occurred secretly and without anyone’s permission. Finally one Sunday in late February of 1906, the agent of the neighboring property discovered Pence’s surreptitious project and brought the encroachment to the attention of Mayor Harry Lane. The mayor and a police squad armed with sledgehammers soon wrecked over 20 feet of the massive flume, spelling the failure of yet another developer’s dream to exploit this pristine wilderness so close to the city.
Remnants of the ditch system can be seen along the Wildwood Trail just a mile north of where the Wild Cherry Trail intersects with the Wildwood, or about 3 miles south of Fire Lane 1.
Follow Fire Lane 1 down to your left. It’s a short walk down from the meadow to the gate on Leif Erikson that you recently passed as you ascended. Approximately thirty-five minutes should have elapsed since you passed through this gate on your way up the trail. Another forty-five minutes are required to descend from the gate to Highway 30, the start of the hike.