Portland is rife with hiking trails throughout the city. Forest Park, alone, has about 70 miles of trails within its boundaries. The Wildwood Trail runs for 30.2 miles through both Washington Park and Forest Park. When we moved here in October 2018 my goal was to run the trail end to end, and I finally did it in June 2019.
Forest Park is gorgeous this time of year. The trails have dried out from all the winter rain, and the spring foliage is incredibly lush. There is plenty of canopy coverage to keep you cool on a hot day. Spring and summer running make up for all of the wet, winter runs through ankle-deep mud.
I run portions of the Wildwood twice a week, and have run approximately 22 miles of the trail. Since I’m in the thick of ultra marathon training, it was the perfect time to do the trail in its entirety. I needed to hit 35 miles for the day, so I tacked on an additional 6.5 miles to get from our apartment to the trailhead. I started at Portland State University running on Terwilliger to the Marquam trailhead, followed the Marquam Trail up through Council Crest, before finally meeting up at the start of the Wildwood in Washington Park.
The weather was cool and cloudy – perfect for a long run. The first 2.4 miles to the trailhead are on the road and quick. The next 2.6 on the Marquam Trail up to Council Crest are always slow-going for me; the trail climbs roughly 1,100 feet in this section and I end up doing quite a bit of hiking. Thankfully, the next 1.5 miles to the start of the Wildwood are downhill. The Wildwood is mostly rolling hills the 2-ish miles through Washington Park giving a bit of breather before climbing to Pittock Mansion. The trail is closed for about 1/2 mile at Burnside before the hill to Pittock Mansion, but luckily someone posted a detour that runs along the road. After Pittock there’s a downhill to McLeay Falls before a long, rolling climb to Fire Lane 1 (my halfway point). I got to Fire Lane 1 where I met Matt for a refill of my water and to grab some snacks.
The second half of the run felt a lot slower than the first. I was able to keep a decent pace and just kept moving forward, even if that meant walking. The Wildwood is a fairly easy trail without a lot of climbing. While this is usually a good thing, a very runnable trail means, well, a lot of running :). I enjoyed the rolling hills and quiet section of trail for next 8 miles, when I started to get pretty fatigued around mile 25. I fueled myself with plenty of GUs, potatoes, and peanut butter crackers, ensured I was staying well hydrated, and kept chugging along. There weren’t any more major climbs after Pittock, so it was mostly a mental game to move forward as quickly as I was able.
After crossing Germantown Road around mile 30, I knew I was in the home stretch with about 5 miles to go. I took a tumble a mile in – tired legs + tree roots are a recipe for disaster – but, aside from a slightly bruised ego I was fine to keep going. I met Matt and Snickers at Firelane 15 with 1.8 miles to the end. They helped me keep moving, though at this point my knees and feet were achy so I was going pretty slowly. We finally made it to the car in around 7 hours. Not the fastest by far, but it felt really good to accomplish something of that magnitude.
mattandbethtravels 