Cherries and Other Cherries

Road Edge Thicket of Choke Cherry


Everybody loves cherries. Good to eat, pretty to look at when they bloom - especially the fancy oriental varieties. Its a commercial crop that brings high prices to the orchardists of the American West. A staple of our diet, they add flavor to martinis, chocolates and soda pop.

The sweet cherry is derived from Prunus avium, the bird or fruit cherry, a widespread Eurasian species. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have two native species, choke cherry (Prunus virginianum demissa) and bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata mollis)., Both are sun-loving pioneer species, one of which grows large enough to survive in forests, at least until the conifers get large. Unfortunately our cherries are as good tasting as their names imply, meaning don't even try.

Pictured above is a thicket of choke cherries, the smaller of our native cherries. Lining a road and enjoying the sunshine, this suckering tree-shrub does not extend into the dark shaded North-slope forest behind. The larger bitter cherry, Prunus virginiana demissa can pioneer on streambanks and come up thick after burns or logging. As the other trees overtop the cherry, it dies and soon falls to the forest floor, the bark outlasting the wood.






Fruit and Choke Cherries side by side



Here the wide branching deciduous tree down the hill behind the smaller choke cherries is a naturalized bird cherry. It seems this Eurasian import finds our area to its liking. With home and commercial orchards providing bird-dispersed seed sources, as well as hikers chomping on cherries along the trail, this should come as no surprise.

Like any introduced plant that is able to naturally propagate itself and thrive in our climate, the bird cherry has the potential to alter the habitat it finds itself in. Some introduced plants, like the laurel daphne (Daphne laureola), survives well but will never seriously compete with our much taller growing native shrubs. Others, like ivy or Himalayan blackberries, can dominate an area at the expense of most of the native flora. How does the bird cherry measure up on a scale of "invasiveness"?

The next photo shows its potential on a site favorable to it.









Bird Cherry Thicket, Little Woodrose Nature Park, Tualatin

The picture was taken in Little Woodrose Nature Park in Tualatin, Oregon. This site is unusual in having a very warm sandy soil, and that extra underground heat is very encouraging to bird cherry.

Every stem visible in this photo is a bird cherry. The young seedlings are very shade tolerant, unlike our native cherries, and can hold their own indefinitely under a mature forest while slowly shading out most or all of its competition, both shrubs and trees. Young shaded trees often take on what the forester calls a wolf form, spreading out more that up, so that it more quickly blocks the light from the plants around it. Open grown trees shoot up quickly, and then begin to spread.







Bird Cherry, Cook Park




The invasive bird cherry can develop a massive broad crown. Under forest conditions it forms a strong central leader like this one but in more open conditions the leader can branch strongly and the tree becomes much more spreading, as in the following picture. Seedlings in deep shade can form thickets, especially in warm or disturbed soils.

On cooler, forested habitats the bird cherry tends to grow scattered throughout the stands, with the thickets seen on warmer soils rare or absent. It is not as large as our native bigleaf maple, but it is more shade tolerant, giving it a competitive advantage. It keeps lower limbs longer than most native trees.






Bird Cherry, Little Woodrose Nature Park




The potential range of bird cherry is not fully known. Its been found naturalizing from Vancouver Island on down into California. In its native haunts it grows from the mountains of North Africa to Scandinavia, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland and east to Iran. This would suggest wide adaptability. A good guess would predict a range from California well into British Columbia, and east into the Ponderosa pine belt, where late frosts would limit its ability to reproduce. In the mountains it likely could spread into the lower snow belt, 3,000 to 3,500 feet in Northern Oregon. All this is an estimate and will need to be verified by observation.


Cherry Thicket Forming, Cook Park, Tigard



Management Issues

Large older bird cherries can send up seedlings readily if land is disturbed or cleared around them, as is the case with this one in the bottomlands of Cook Park, Tigard. All the smaller upright stems in the picture above are young bird cherry seedlings. Park development provided the opportunity and the invasive bird cherry took advantage. Thank you very much!

Bird Cherry adaptation in select natural areas in the Portland area:
Little Woodrose Nature Park, Tualatin - dominates understory with many large older trees, mid-sized thickets, and thickets of saplings.
Cook Park, Tigard - Scattered older trees with some continued reproduction in various habitats
Mount Talbert, Clackamas - Many large older and mid-sized trees with some continued but scattered reproduction
Cooks Butte, Lake Oswego - Spread limited in this park.
West Linn Wilderness Park - Very few present, with limited new saplings.
Powell Butte, Portland - Many trees of all age classes, but prejudicial management has begun here.

So bird or fruit cherry is a highly invasive species already widely established in our area. It comes with the potential to alter extensively most land up to moderate elevations, and to completely dominate warm soil areas to the potential exclusion of most native trees and shrubs. It is much more common than native cherries.







Ivy and Bird Cherry Equals Lost Native Habitat

One of the problems in management of cherries is lack of awareness of the situation on the ground. It is widely assumed that cherries are native and to be left alone. This is fine when true, but managers need to be aware of what they have in their natural areas - which means that the ability to identify the three types of cherry met in our area is a crucial management tool.

The heavier root system of the invasive cherry is often a help in identification. The natives are lighter and smaller in all respects and will not show this much root. Bird cherry has thick, brittle stems; the native light, flexible stems. All three species are able to form thickets, and the bird cherry does this both by seedling reproduction and root suckering, and the natives do so by extensive suckering with only a few seedlings.








Heavy Bole of the Bird Cherry

This bird cherry trunk is about the maximum size of the native bitter cherry. However, this bird cherry is still a youngster, and reports indicate a potential trunk size up to five feet across. It is a rapid grower and may reach that size in a century. Some of our biggest examples are farmyard orchard trees of that age.








Suckering Choke Cherries

This choke cherry patch contrasts with the heavy-boled bird cherry, and is also smaller and lighter than the bitter cherries here in the valley.

























Maple and Bird Cherry Leaves on the Forest Floor


The leaves of the bird cherry are twice the length of the native species and sport deeper teeth along the edges. The bird cherry also will take on some red fall color, which is absent with the native cherries.


The first active management of this invasive I observed is at Camassia Natural Area in West Linn. There The Nature Conservancy put this cherry to use lining the trails. Bird cherry removal is underway at Powell Butte in Portland. The chain saw is the preferred tool. Long term vigilance is crucial, as young seedlings can be missed and new ones will come along. Resprouting from low-cut stumps should be limited, and cherries as a group do not resist decay once cut.

The bird cherry Prunus avium is a habitat-altering invasive. It is able to form thickets in sun or shade to the detriment of native trees and shrubs. Unlike most larger trees, its shade tolerance and retention of branches in forest conditions allows it to compete with not just trees but smaller shrubs as well. It spreads easily from seed produced by both naturalized and orchard trees. Effective forest management in parks and other natural areas should include removal of this tree.

Click here to view more pictures and a tabular presentation of cherry characteristics used to distinguish the locally occurring species.

Orchids on Mount Talbert

One of the curious facts about our Pacific Northwest native plants is that high mountain plants are often better known that lowland natives. With most low elevation land in private ownership, access is somewhat restricted in comparison with the bulk of the Cascade Mountain Range, much of which (especially high elevations) are in Federal ownership and fully open to the public.


Thats what gives an area like Mount Talbert such value. Though hardly pristine, this ancient volcano saw most of its human disturbances early on, before the blights of Himalayan blackberries, ivy and broom became so widespread. Logging was done mostly more than 75 years ago. Luckily what has been growing back since then is by and large native and natural.


Among the most delicate native plants are the orchids. Their roots are confined to the forest duff, and they disappear when this superficial layer is disturbed. An event like fire whether natural or set to burn logging slash will destroy it.


The fact that I've located two kinds of orchids on Mount Talbert is likely due to the fact that early loggers were not required to burn slash, and the lesser disturbance helped retain the native ecosystem there much more that would happen nowadays. And the worse scourge of blackberries and Scotch broom did not occur much that far back.


The first orchid I discovered on Mount Talbert is the evergreen rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia). Pale veins on the deep green leaves make this one easy to identify. Only three plants were growing in a small group. The flowers are small and greenish, opening in summertime.


The second is much showier in flower. The fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa) is shaped much like a corsage orchid from the florist. This diminutive plant is a bright pink miniature. Growing erect 4 to 8 inches (20 cm) tall, the plant grows but a single leaf each fall, which winters over, but withers the following summer. This is an example of summer dormancy, of which our climate has many.






Fairies slipper orchid










The showy, large Lady's-slipper orchid (Cypripedium montanum) is our most conspicuous orchid at up to 2 feet. Unfortunately it is mostly confined to east of the Cascades. Yet it has been spotted to the west ("rarely w Cas" states the authoritative Flora of the Pacific Northwest). Our other 11 genera of orchids are all mountain species, but an eye should be kept out for the possibility that a few survive in preserves like Mount Talbert.

Tours with the Clackamas River Basin Council

Changes to My Hiking Tours


Due to the heavy snowpack (see post just below) and the continuous unseasonably cold weather, I'm forced to change the destination for the first tour in the Cascade Mountains. The original location tops out at 4900 feet (1500 meters) and according to the SNOTEL sites there is as of yesterday eight to nine feet of snow still lurking about at that elevation. As the sites display a weeks worth of data, we know that only 18 inches melted off in that period.


After reviewing several options, I've settled on a 2.5 mile (4 km) loop trail at Clackamas Lake. Though this will be early in the season flower-wise, this hike offers open water, wetlands, springs, old growth fir and some historic Forest Service structures. Elevation change is perhaps 70 feet (21 m).


As an optional longer tour, those wishing more time on the trails will continue on to Timothy Lake, following the northeast side of the Oak Grove Fork of the Clackamas River, returning along the other bank. This is a 6.2 mile (10 km) loop with only 100 feet (30 m) elevation change. Included is a mile and a quarter (2 km) along the lakeshore of Timothy, skirting two campgrounds.

Meeting time and place remain the same, 9 AM at the Estacada Ranger Station.





Clackamas Lake






And what about the following two tours? If too much snow still lies on the ground, I will push the earlier hikes to the next date. So the Right Angle tour will replace Bull of the Woods, which will replace Olallie Highlands. No matter how this falls out, any missed tour will be on the list for next year.

The Original Post:

More than just a hike!

Leader Bryon Boyce will provide a running commentary on wildflowers, geology, and other natural history points of interest.

The Natural City Tour will meet at 9 AM at the offices of the Clackamas River Basin Council.

The later three tours will meet at the Estacada Ranger Station to accommodate those living farther out. 9 AM for all.

April 27th - The Natural City Tour

Our urban area is blessed with a variety of natural areas which feature remnants of the diverse "valley floor" habitats. Many of these areas are little visited even by those active in preservation work. This tour visits three outstanding examples in two locations. In the morning see the newly linked Camassia Natural Area (The Nature Conservancy's first purchase in Oregon) and West Linn Wilderness Park, home of the largest and oldest firs in the urban area. The dwarf oak savannas of Camassia are unique, and the quaking aspen pond is unusual locally.

Camas and Corn Salad at Camassia Natural Area






This tour is timed to catch what is probably the best flower display in the Portland urban area. The effects of the Missoula Floods are especially obvious here. Hopefully the osprey nest will be occupied.

In early afternoon we will visit Mount Talbert, the first Metro acquisition to be developed and opened to the public. The 750 foot extinct volcano has high quality natural vegetation little affected by invasives. The remnant wet oak savannas are receiving preferential management, including fir, cottonwood and brush removal. This woodland type was once common in the urban area. Some uncommon plants are present. The area is large enough to host deer, coyote, owls and in winter pileated woodpeckers.

Meet at the Clackamas River Basin Council offices (street address and on web link to map) at 9 AM. Bring lunch, water and hiking shoes or boots. Dress considering the weather. Expect generally good trails with a little rock hopping. There will be two to three hours on the trails, depending on discussion and picture taking.

June 22th - Right Angle Viewpoint

This outing into the lushly forested Western Cascades includes open wildflower areas and a sampling of features that illustrate the ancient volcanic history of the region.

After driving up the Molalla River past the interesting Molalla Eye, the hiking trail weaves between the Molalla and Clackamas drainages, and between Forest Service and BLM land. The unsigned route was long abandoned but has been reopened during the past few years.




Old Whitespot aka Baty Butte from near Right Angle Viewpoint









At Right Angle Viewpoint on the Clackamas side, drought-prone unstable soil on an ancient pyroclastic flow prevents tree growth, and provides the 180 degree viewpoint. Spires formed by volcanic action in the volcanic flow still stand. To the north is Old Whitespot (on the maps as Baty Butte) and Mount Hood, to the east Thunder and Fish Creek Mountains, and southeast Olallie Butte and south Mount Jefferson. The white spot of Old Whitespot is an ancient creekbed filled with white pumice, and now dissected, leaving a U-shaped display in a large little-vegetated area. We will also visit an overlook above a glacial valley and onto the lower slopes just below the white spot.

Easy to moderate 3-4 miles hike with a cumulative elevation gain of 5-600 ft. Trailhead is about 4500 ft and the highpoint is 4900 at Right Angle Viewpoint. Milage and gain are approximate as the route is not on maps that show trail milage or elevations.

July 13th - Bull of the Woods

Expect wildflowers and views on this 6.4 mile long round trip. Natural rockgardens and meadows are seen as we pass over to the shoulders of Dickey and South Dickey Peak to Bull of the Woods Lookout at 5523 ft. This is the westernmost ridge which features plants more common to the east.

Cardwell's Penstemon enroute to Bull of the Woods







The lookout was built in 1942 and is the only surviving one from the WWII era in the Mount Hood National Forest. It was formerly available for rent from the Forest Service, but is currently undergoing restoration. Mules have been put to use for this project, one of the first uses of either horses or mules in decades in the area.

An 825 ft. elevation gain along this ridge just east of Pansy Basin. A easy to moderate hike at 250 ft. gain per mile.

July 20th - Headwaters High Elevation Loop

Visit the under-appreciated highlands of Olallie Scenic Area. Most of the area underwent sheet glaciation rather than valley glaciation, resulting in flatter terrain and so many lakes and ponds that many have never been named. This 5 mile partial loop hike will pass well over a dozen water bodies. Other features include wide-ranging views with the glaciers of Mount Jefferson only 9 miles distant, glacial striations in bedrock, wildflowers, and a mixed woodland vegetation with subalpine variations.

Mount Jefferson from Olallie Highlands







This is a easy to moderate hike with a 900 ft. elevation gain, most of which will be on the way up Double Peak to the high point of 5900 ft. The route meanders between the Clackamas, Santiam and Deschutes watersheds.

Map to the start of the April tour:

View Larger Map

Map to the start of the Summer tours:

View Larger Map

Return of the Osprey

We first heard and then saw osprey March 27th, two days earlier than last year. Their distinctive and frequent high-pitched calls make them impossible to miss.

This species is recovering from low populations earlier in the 1970s and 80s. We did not observe them until 1991. In the subsequent year there were three - the parents and their single offspring who sometimes followed them and sometimes not.

These birds mate for life, and the father does all the hunting while nesting is underway.






Trees are the favored perches for osprey. They will wait for a likely meal to surface and then dive feet-first into the water very rapidly. Sometimes they hover like a kestrel waiting for the fish to surface. Once a fish is caught, they carry it in the most aerodynamic way possible - face first. Rarely if hungry they will catch small animals but well over 99% of their diet is fish.

Trees are also needed for nesting sites - and only large trees will do. They have been known to use cliffs and various man-made structures for nesting sites. As suitable sites can be rare with the lack of old forests, nesting platforms can be made that they find very useful! Some studies have found that these purpose-built designs actually increase the number of hatchlings, as they are more stable and require less nest building by the birds.

Spring Signs at Mount Talbert

Earlier today I hiked around Mount Talbert Nature Preserve. We've had only a couple of warmer days in the 50's (10-12 C). Many herbacious 'winter' annuals and perennials already know its spring. Candyflower seedlings are very common there between the big sword ferns. Bittercress, one of our few native weeds, is showing new green. Tiny seedling of other types are showing wherever they may. But the champion for earliness is the snow queen, which was the only plant actually in bloom.

Actually I should say the only plant in bloom was a snow queen - I saw only one. The rest at most showed a new leaf or two. I've seem them blooming elsewhere blooming early in January, as there always seems to be one blooming well ahead of the others. The main flush of blooms comes in mid-March. Like spring bulbs this has a quick heavy flush of bloom early, with nothing most of the year. Unlike the bulbs, this is evergreen, with the deep green leaves often tinged purple over the winter.

Snow Queen near the Mather Road Parking on Mount Talbert


This plant likes dry rocky ground made humusy by fir needles. They also like more light than firs usually allow. So they are most common on the edge between oak and fir woodland. This ecotone or edge habitat is common at Mount Talbert. The blue blossoms are showy for their brief season in March, and they are gone - but still handsomely green.

The botanic name is Synthyris reniformis, and it is in the penstemon or snapdragon family. Now thru the end of March is the time to visit Mount Talbert to see this plant in flower.

About six weeks ago I watched three deer at dusk in the park. The doe and her two near-yearlings were not panicked by my presence, but sauntered between bites away at an angle from me. I had walked to perhaps 120 feet from them before noticing. I watched them for perhaps 5 minutes before proceeding on my intended path.

It would be interesting to know how many deer this acreage supports. There is over 200 acres (80+ hectares) of woodlands in the park area, not all preserved, and more on the very steep slopes across Mather Road. Only a few years back mixed farm and forest extended east to the Cascade Mountains, but now this area is isolated from other lands suitable for deer. How big an area is needed to support a viable population of blacktails? This might be a good area for a study on the subject. Experts tell us that in good lowland habitat a home range can be as small as 100 acres. The oak openings provide good grazing and the deer may be keeping the park more open by browsing the shrubbery. Deer don't like to eat sword fern so they actually encourage it, and indeed it covers much of the forest floor.

Park Improvements in West Linn

West Linn Wilderness Park has just been linked to the adjacent Camassia Natural Area with a new trail. The city park and what is The Nature Conservancy's first purchase in Oregon have always been contiguous, but old tracks connecting the two have slowly closed in with poison oak and other shrubbery. The new route starts at the low point of the trail in the section of city park west of Clark Street. Slanting down a steep slope it passes a view of a boggy pond before joining the main trail system on the southeast corner of the scabland portion of Camassia. TNC has provided signage.

Joining these two makes a more useable open space for those wishing a bit of exercise. Both have their unique botanic qualities which complement one another. This rapidly developing area is blessed by these prime examples of nature in the city.

The Wilderness Park features a fir forest with much larger trees than usual. This area is just uphill from the first sawmill west of the Mississippi, and the woodland has been growing back from very early logging of probably 160 years ago. The biggest Douglas firs take three people to link arms around - nearly 5 feet wide and 15 feet around. The largest grand fir are nearly as big.

A hearty attempt to eradicate English Ivy began last summer but less than half the area is done. There are still remnant populations of many native woodland plants so hopefully they can spread once the ivy is gone.

Camassia Natural Area is positioned lower on the slope and has large areas with only a little soil over basaltic bedrock. Massive displays of deep blue camas peak in April, and other flowers, some very rare, add to the spring show. Dwarfed oaks are scattered about, but much of the thin soil area is treeless. Wildflowers in Western Oregon are usually limited by the dense dark forests, but here they grow lustily and provide a solid display in the sunshine.





Licorice fern, Oregon grape and mid-sized oaks at Camassia Natural Area

Google Map of the two natural areas

Mount Talbert In The Snow

The spate of cold weather in January finally brought snowfall for the first time in three years. At our house about four inches fell, enough for me to get out the old Asnes Trends with the crack which I've saved for just such times. An odd combination of high camber racing and metal edged backcountry goodness, they carved christys well, cutting down to the underlying grass only in the turns.

Visiting natural areas in the snow gives you the opportunity to see things that otherwise are always missed. Animal tracks rarely show up in the thick duff of Pacific Coast forests. With fresh snow even a novice tracker will find tracks of several animals, even small ones otherwise never seen.

At Mount Talbert, only two inches were on the ground, not enough for optimum tracking as the larger animals - deer and coyote - will break though the snow, leaving indistinct tracks. A little searching along a track will bring up obvious ones despite this. Smaller animals leave very clear traces in these conditions.

The first track I noticed was rabbit. Following along the track was easy. Soon I found another set of tracks that joined alongside the rabbits - coyote! This fellows interest in the rabbit is strictly gustatory. A second coyote soon joined the track, and the two met, greeting each other, leaving a jumble of tracks - while the rabbit went into a brushpile to hide. No easy meal for the coyotes this time!


Rabbit tracks are round-toed, with the back foot usually leaving a long mark alongside a toes-only front print.

Following other tracks, it became obvious that various animals will use the same path. A open route is open for all. One unidentified large rodent was seemingly accompanied by a deer - but no doubt they were there at different times. The deer passed around fallen trees while the rodent went under.

Following the many deer tracks backwards, I soon found several beds, including these two where they laid during the snowstorm, keeping the ground bare in a curled-up deer pattern. Some of the leaves which was the cushion were shaken off when the deer awoke and lay on top of the fresh white snow. A second, smaller bed was a few yards off, and the animal had evidently slept with one leg stuck out. A third bed was found which was used the night after the snow had fallen.







































Raccoon
Raccoons left clear tracks under these conditions. The front and back tracks are placed along side one another with the back print larger. Like us, raccoons are omnivores, eating meat, fruit, and eggs, and prefer to wash their food well. They are urbanizing well, needing only a small area of cover.

















Squirrel
Some squirrel species have a Latin name that means "seed loving", and this describes their feeding habits well. Both ground and tree dwelling types exist, and ours are tree types locally. They spend some time foraging on the ground and so left tracks during this snow event. The elongated toes are adapted for grasping and climbing. In summer they busy themselves cutting conifer cones, dropping them to the ground and then hunting them up on the ground. Many are stored for winter; they will also gorge on the seeds, leaving the dismembered cone scales in sometimes large piles. These are usually near the base of a large fir, their escape route in case of danger.




Squirrel feeding at Mount Talbert

Mount Talbert Nature Park

A new major addtion to the area's urban parks system, this hilltop preserve has a decidedly non-urban look and feel. Mount Talbert is one of many Portland-area peaks resulting from the Boring Volcanics series. A set of trails has now been placed in the park. One circles the mountain, another crosses over the 750 ft. elevation maple and oak covered top, while others fan out to the several trailheads. A notable feature of the park is the undegraded nature of the plant life. Though the trees are young, with the biggest firs only 2 to 3 feet in diameter, there are few invasive non-native plants under the forest canopy, and the natural, native plant associations are still in place.

Here at Mount Talbert, after logging perhaps 60-80 years ago, the trees and native forest floor vegetation was able to return heartily. Low elevation areas with intact natural plant communities are actually unusual, as most of the areas in the valleys and low elevation slopes have been farmed, ranched or urbanized, eliminating the natural ecology. Here land use practices were hands-off for the most part, and the forest had time to recover before the modern-day scourges of Scotch broom, hawthorne and especially Himalayan blackberry were able to intrude and dominate. This gives the park great potential from the educational and research standpoints.

An interesting and worthwhile ecological experiment is underway at the park involving the native Oregon white oak woodlands. This sun loving tree casts a very light shade beneficial to other plants. Douglas-fir seedlings are able to thrive in oak woodlands, but the fir grow 3 to 4 times higher than the oaks, and cast shade too deep for the oaks to tolerate. So in the natural forest succession the oaks will die out. It is thought that the Native American population in this area used fire to improve hunting and for other purposes, which kept the firs from growing, while the thick-barked oaks survived.




The experiment is to favor the oaks artificially by eliminating the competing firs, maples and shrubbery. About 19 acres of oak woodland has been treated in this way, out of 183 acres of parkland here. Firs and other trees in the selected areas have been girdled, topped or cut down, while allowed to continue thriving in the large areas with few or no oaks. This should result in a much more diverse ecology in the park and show us how different the tree cover types will be in terms of understory.





The preservation of Mount Talbert is one of many positive results of the 1995 voter approval of the Metro bond measure dedicated to parks land acquisition in the urban area. We are indeed fortunate to have an electorate wise enough in the long term to see the value of parks in this region. The November approval of a second such bond measure will result in much more parkland purchased and made available in our area.

The 1995 Open Spaces Bond Measure resulted in the purchase of 8146 acres for parks (36% more than the 6000 expected at the time of passage), including 74 miles of stream frontage. This was 263 separate transactions. Its expected that the 2006 measure will directly lead to as much as 5500 more acres, plus this time additional funds for development of parks for public use.

Though good trails are available to the footloose now, the 'Grand Opening' of the park will be next year. Planners have moved the planned primary public entry to a site along Mather Road, with construction in 2007. The original idea of placing the main entry and parking near Sunnyside Road proved impractical upon closer inspection.

Parking has yet to be provided, so autos must be left on residential streets, and signage is limited. Its a challenge to find the trailheads. Once you do, expect a somewhat steep initial climb onto the sides of Mount Talbert, but as soon as the main loop trail is reached, its easy going around the mountain. If you wish more elevation gain, try the Westridge Trail over the top.

Oaks Bottom Wildlife Preserve Tour

After several visits, here is some commentary on Oaks Bottom, a park and wildlife refuge on the Willamette River in Portland.

Dozens of great blue herons stand in the open, shallow lakes, just far enough apart to be out of beaks reach of each other. The grey color of both the water and the herons made a close look necessary to pick them out. The joggers running by will miss them easily. A single bright white great egret slowly strode across a marshy area, acting no different from the great blues but certainly standing out in the crowd!

A smooth asphalt handicap-accessible path runs North and South from just upstream from here and miles downstream into Portland, ending at the Steel Bridge. The way crosses on a pedestrian path under the bridge and loops through the urban parks of the Portland Waterfront area. This complex of walkways gives Portland a unique combination of urban and nature. It's popular with cyclists, walkers and hikers alike. We brought Grandma in her wheelchair, as nature is one of her few pleasures at 82. Its possible to link this path complex with the more easterly sections of the Springwater rails-to-trails project, bringing several other parks within cycling distance on a day trip. On foot this will take more than one day! The trail section from Oaks Bottom east is funded but yet to be constructed, so a short jaunt on city streets is necessary. To find a route, just drag the Google map to see the streets. The trail crosses 99E on a new bridge near Ochoco Street at about 19th Avenue The trail follows Johnson Creek Blvd for quite a ways, then Foster, eventually ending at Boring. An eventual expansion will follow the old rail line to Estacada, and hence into the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific Crest Trail. So one day it may be possible to start a hike in downtown Portland and end up at the border with Canada or Mexico.



Some unpaved side paths lead to Willamette River views while others circle the lakes and wetlands of the bottoms. More trails link with the Southeast Portland Sellwood neighborhoods. In the pictures here note the skyscrapers of Portland in the background. On the far side against the bluffs wood ducks and the prolific mallards are crowded in their abundance. These ducks seem to prefer being near the small logs blown to this side of the lake. They can use them for perching out of the water yet still be away from shore and its dangers. A single surf scoter was sighted, rare inland from the Pacific and almost never seen in Portland.



Between the marshes and the Willamette River is first a much used railroad track and then the 44 acre (17.8 h.) Oaks Amusement Park. It's been there since 1905. In the 1800's the river connected directly with the bottoms, and the bottoms extended another mile North. The South end became a garbage dump,and the North was largely filled in with debris from freeway construction.

See our earlier Great Blue Heron post

Go to a Google Map of Oaks Bottom Wildlife Preserve. Start at the bottom center of the map, finding the label 'Oaks Pioneer Park'. That park is on top of the riverbank bluff, and Oaks Bottom is below, the brownish area to the north of the label. The Google arial photo was taken during the summer low water.