Treks and Adventures
I got out to hike some trails in Forest Park that I had not been on in many years. Part of the exploring was to see where a couple of fire lanes came on at. By the numbers – 11 miles, 2450 ft. total elevation gain and on trail for 5 hours.
I had planned on making this a conditioning hike on trails in the center section of Forest Park but once I went down a couple of new trails all training went out the window and exploring took over. I still got in 7.5 miles with 1850 elevation gain in 4 hrs. of trail time.
There was a break in the rain today so I went over to Forest Park for a hike. From Germantown Rd. Parking I did a route of Wildwood Trail south to Waterline Trail and went down Waterline and Tolinda Trails to Germantown Rd. Then back up Tolinda and all of Waterline up to Skyline Blvd. Then back down to Wildwood and hiked it over to Springville Rd. and down to Leaf Erikson Dr. and back to my car. Manage to cover about 8 miles with a 1700 ft. of Elevation gain. Tolinda and Waterline Trail area more rustic and more interesting to do. Wildwood and Leaf Erikson you can pick miles but are boring. There is a nice large grass area at the top of Waterline Trial by the water tower but there is no parking for it off of Skyline.
Forecast had for one more day of nice weather before the rain returned so I wanted to get in one more hike. I tried doing Firelane One in Forest Park but the gate was close so I thought I would try it again. The parking lot and new start of the trail was put in a few years ago so it was nice to see what was done. The trail starts out steep but quickly changes into the service road for the power line. I added on some other trails to make a lollipop loop out of it. The first mile of the firelane has some great views and some great mud.
This was the 14th anniversary of the Mazama’s New Years Eve Roller Coaster Hike in Forest Park. Rex was the leader this time and we had a good turn out. It was a chance for me to see some old Mazama friends and to meet some new folks. We lucked out the the weather and did not get any rain. The hike was about 7.5 miles long with 1600 total elevation gain and we were on the trail for about 3:45 minutes.
