To keep myself accountable I'm going to document my 52 Week Challenge. I have lived in Portland for five years now and in that time I have accumulated a huge list of trails I want to hike, events I want to attend, classes I want to take. There are a lot and I want to share it all with Lake. So last week I decided to start going through the list and making a plan.
The challenge is to visit 52 new Portland (area) city parks, hike 52 new trails, one a week each for a year. In addition I want us to experience at least one cultural event a month.
Besides documenting the challenge, in a second effort to keep myself accountable, I am posting the hikes to the Hike-it-Baby calendars and am committing to host the hikes. Now I HAVE to show up...even if it's cold and raining, or hot and windy.
Portland is an amazing area and I look forward to seeing more and sharing my love of the outdoors with Lake.
Week One: January 2, 2018
Hike: Forest Park - Wild Cherry Trail to Leif Erikson Dr. to Dogwood Trail
Distance: 3.33 miles
Lake, Gaius and I
I was happy to have Gaius with us on our first trip of the year. For the most part it's going to be Lake and I on the trail and maybe a few other Hike-it-Baby moms on some of the trips.
We started at the trail head on NW 53rd Dr. and made a loop out of the Wild Cherry Trail, Leif Erikson Dr. and Dogwood Trail. Damn, it was cold and windy on top of the hill, but once we dropped down from the top the bite of the winter winds lessened, making it much more enjoyable. The ground around us, and many trees trunks are covered in ferns. It was beautiful and reminded me of hiking around Humboldt County. With trees missing leaves, we could see quite a ways down the hill though the park, all the way to the river and even downtown in some places. During one stop to rest we checked out a big ship on the water.
Lake was a trooper, although it was a bit tough going about half way through when he wanted to be done hiking and back at the car. After a short rest, he was good to go and was fantastic the rest of the way. Both Gaius and I were surprised that we hiked 3.3 miles, it really didn't seem that far.
I look forward to exploring more of Forest Park and am thinking about how to fit the full length of the Wildwood Trail into our plans.
Week One: January 4, 2018
Portland City Park: Luuwit View Park
Location: NE Fremont @ NE127th Ave.
Luuwit View Park is one of the newest parks developed by the city of Portland, project finished just this year. I have to say I thought it was fantastic. It was another super cold day, but we didn't let that stop us...but it seemed to stop others as we only saw one other child playing in the park and she didn't stay long. There are several play areas, two amazing tangle ball climbing structures, swings, slides, covered picnic area, at least one bbq grill, musical xylophones and bells, hills with that padded rubber surface material, green areas, a nature area with rocks and logs, and although it was not turned on (thank goodness!) there is a water feature here too and it's surrounded by what will be a tunnel of green, willows I think. There is even a really cool art sculpture. I bet I'm forgetting something, because there was so much to see and it was so cold! Oh, the view...it was cloudy and raining off and on, but we could certainly see airplanes coming and going at the airport, we even got to see military jets. And on a clear day we would have been able to get a great view of Mt St. Helens and more.\
We will be back for sure!
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