Maple Trail, Forest Park Portland, Oregon

Sometimes it's nice to find a hike closer to home, particularly if the Bears and the Jags are playing at 10:00 AM on the west coast. Forest Park is one of the country's largest urban parks spanning an impressive 5,100 acres virtually in downtown Portland, Oregon. It's fun to explore the 70 miles of trails in this park and get a visual of what Portland looked liked before city life.

We took our out-of-towners to the Maple Trail, hoping to see the maples transitioning from green to yellow. And while some of our deiciduous counterparts have embraced fall, most of the trees here in Portland are still clinging on to summer. So, as a result the trail was still mostly green, but beautiful nonetheless.

To get to the Maple Trail we took Highway 30 to Salztman Road. We followed Saltzman Road for roughly 1 mile until we saw the signage pointing us to the Maple Trail. We looped it back for a 3 mile hike roundtrip by cutting through on the Quarry Trail which brings you back to Saltzman Road further uphill. I'm hoping to return in a few weeks to see the changing leaves.

Tory