Oregon has some awesome hikes. Surely this is no shocker to most people from the Pacific Northwest, but it dawned on me recently how few of them I’ve been on. Yes, I’ve hit the loop at Silver Creek Falls a couple of times, but other than that I’ve only gone on a handful of hikes in this great state of ours. I’ve gone on many more, many longer, and much more challenging hikes when I’ve been out traveling around other states and other countries. But when it’s only a short drive from my house to a trailhead? It hasn’t been a priority.
That’s the thing about getting outside and hunting down new adventures – you tend to do it more when you’re in new areas than when you’re around familiar surroundings. Hike up around and behind Multnomah Falls? Maybe next week.
Well, next week finally came last week.
After hiking around and over 10 or so waterfalls on the Wahkeena Loop path at Multnomah Falls, Oregon’s natural beauty inspired me to start hunting out other hikes. That led me to Northrup Creek Trail yesterday. It was a much different hike than Wahkeena Loop – far more trees, far fewer (roughly zero) waterfalls, and maybe most importantly, no other hikers.
There are so many trails within a couple hours’ drive no matter where you live in the state that you are bound to find peace and serenity, if that’s what you’re after, somewhere. Or you can get in as much people watching as you do pavement pounding at some of the more populated trails. Multnomah Falls was packed with people of all shapes and sizes – one was even on crutches. The only people we saw at Northrup was a solitary couple camping with the vast escape of woods as their backdrop.
For me, a trip down a trail is better served without the side dish of hundreds of other people. But seeing so many active bodies soaking up the sun and sweating out the previous night’s party is encouraging at the same time. After all, all hiking is, really, is walking off of sidewalks. Anyone can do it. Whether it’s a quick 2-mile trip down a bark-chip path or a 20-mile hike into the mountains, there’s something for everybody. You want to walk through the woods? No problem, we’ve got that. Hoping for your hike to end on the beach? Drive west. Rivers and lakes more your thing? Plenty of them to go exploring near and cool off in at the end of a long trip.
Portland Hikers Field Guide (portlandhikersfieldguide.org) is just one of many resources to help you plan your trip. You can search for routes based on difficulty, terrain, location – you name it.
Now that the summertime weather is here to stay (please, please be here to stay), it’s time to start mapping out your exercise paths. Where will you walk to next?
Kyle Boggs is on Twitter. Follow him at @KyleKBoggs
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