Tigard – Beaverton forays, January 2020
Posted: January 10th, 2020, 10:29 am
My wife and I spent a couple of days exploring new (to us) trails in the Washington County ‘burbs, stitching together various paths, green spaces, and neighborhood streets.
Pathfinder-Genesis Loop
We began this 3 ½ mile excursion at Woodard Park in Tigard, crossing Fanno Creek and taking Johnson Street to the elevated boardwalks at the Derry Dell Creek Wetlands. The wetlands are being restored and now exhibit native cottonwood, willow, dogwood, sedge, etc. We passed a beaver lodge near Walnut Street, and then took a short hop on Pathfinder Way to join the Pathfinder-Genesis Trail at another small wetland on Derry Dell Creek where green-winged teals and mallards came to beg. The path then heads up past back yards, becoming narrower and unpaved past 115th Avenue. It ends at Gaarde Street, where we took a left to get a great view of Mt. Hood and then cut through St. Anthony Cemetery to loop back on streets and trail connectors.
Tigard Heritage Trail
This brand new trail, which uses an old railroad grade and parallels Tigard Street, is still being planted, but the exhibits for its “outdoor museum” are in place. Each post honors a family of different ethnic background (European, Latino, Chinese, Japanese, Native American, African American) who resided in the area. Large native Pacific ponderosa pines are distinctive near the trail. The ¾ mile trail ends at Tiedeman, so we looped back to Tigard Street and used the Fanno Creek Trail through Dirksen Nature Park and the oak and ponderosa shaded lawns of Woodard Park to return to Main Street.
Ascension Trail to Bull Mountain
The Ascension Trail rises 0.6 miles up a deep gully of natural forest dominated by Douglas-firs. From the high point, near Mistletoe Drive, we took streets and a short connector to get to Sunrise Park, a former pasture that offers views to the West Hills. From here, there are user trails that drop to Sunrise Lane, from where you can access the Cach Nature Park across a farm field. This wooded slope facing South Cooper Mountain supports a network of narrow user-created trails around a formerly private pond. To reach the summit of Bull Mountain, we took neighborhood streets to the fenced area at the top, where there are two half-buried reservoirs at 715 feet above sea level.
Mount Williams
The Westside Regional Trail runs for six miles in a powerline corridor which supports a series of parks. The high point of the trail is the Douglas-fir forest near the summit of Mt. Williams, where we connected to the Mt. Williams Trail. This enabled a loop through natural corridors, striking for the abundance of madrones, in a series of parks (Mt. Williams, Thornbrook, Burntwood West Upper, Burntwood West, Tallac Tarrace). The find of the day was a bushtit nest hanging like a sock from a hazel. Inside were six tiny but cold eggs nestled in a fabric of lichen, moss, and feathers of other species stitched together with spider webbing. To extend the walk , we headed south on the Westside Regional Trail to linear Summercrest Park, a thicketed riparian area on South Johnson Creek with spreading oaks and a beaver-enhanced wetland.
Pathfinder-Genesis Loop
We began this 3 ½ mile excursion at Woodard Park in Tigard, crossing Fanno Creek and taking Johnson Street to the elevated boardwalks at the Derry Dell Creek Wetlands. The wetlands are being restored and now exhibit native cottonwood, willow, dogwood, sedge, etc. We passed a beaver lodge near Walnut Street, and then took a short hop on Pathfinder Way to join the Pathfinder-Genesis Trail at another small wetland on Derry Dell Creek where green-winged teals and mallards came to beg. The path then heads up past back yards, becoming narrower and unpaved past 115th Avenue. It ends at Gaarde Street, where we took a left to get a great view of Mt. Hood and then cut through St. Anthony Cemetery to loop back on streets and trail connectors.
Tigard Heritage Trail
This brand new trail, which uses an old railroad grade and parallels Tigard Street, is still being planted, but the exhibits for its “outdoor museum” are in place. Each post honors a family of different ethnic background (European, Latino, Chinese, Japanese, Native American, African American) who resided in the area. Large native Pacific ponderosa pines are distinctive near the trail. The ¾ mile trail ends at Tiedeman, so we looped back to Tigard Street and used the Fanno Creek Trail through Dirksen Nature Park and the oak and ponderosa shaded lawns of Woodard Park to return to Main Street.
Ascension Trail to Bull Mountain
The Ascension Trail rises 0.6 miles up a deep gully of natural forest dominated by Douglas-firs. From the high point, near Mistletoe Drive, we took streets and a short connector to get to Sunrise Park, a former pasture that offers views to the West Hills. From here, there are user trails that drop to Sunrise Lane, from where you can access the Cach Nature Park across a farm field. This wooded slope facing South Cooper Mountain supports a network of narrow user-created trails around a formerly private pond. To reach the summit of Bull Mountain, we took neighborhood streets to the fenced area at the top, where there are two half-buried reservoirs at 715 feet above sea level.
Mount Williams
The Westside Regional Trail runs for six miles in a powerline corridor which supports a series of parks. The high point of the trail is the Douglas-fir forest near the summit of Mt. Williams, where we connected to the Mt. Williams Trail. This enabled a loop through natural corridors, striking for the abundance of madrones, in a series of parks (Mt. Williams, Thornbrook, Burntwood West Upper, Burntwood West, Tallac Tarrace). The find of the day was a bushtit nest hanging like a sock from a hazel. Inside were six tiny but cold eggs nestled in a fabric of lichen, moss, and feathers of other species stitched together with spider webbing. To extend the walk , we headed south on the Westside Regional Trail to linear Summercrest Park, a thicketed riparian area on South Johnson Creek with spreading oaks and a beaver-enhanced wetland.