Located only minutes from downtown Portland, Tryon Creek State Natural Area is Oregon's only state park within a major metropolitan area and features weekly guided hikes, wildlife classes and seasonal highlights.
The Tillamook State Forest is a great place to enjoy outdoor fun, with recreation opportunities ranging from rustic campgrounds to trail networks for just about every kind of enthusiast to a world-class visitor center.
Whipple Creek a beautiful little-known park that is rich in hidden historic features and natural wonders. The park has three distinct habitats: about 100 acres of open pasture, about 150 acres of shrub with some trees, and about 125 acres of dense second growth forest.
This 234-acre regional park stretches for 2.5 miles along the west shore of Vancouver Lake. With 35 developed acres of parkland, visitors can enjoy covered picnic facilites with Barbeques, the playground, paddling on the lake, and sand volleyball on the shore.
Steamboat Landing Park provides pedestrian access to several points of interest. Visitors can stroll a floating boardwalk on the Columbia River that leads to an elevated observation deck with vast views of the River, Mt. Hood and Oregon. A peaceful wooded trail provides an alternate short cut to the deck. Visitors can also access the US Corps of Engineers levee trail (used by walkers, bicycles and horses), leading to Captain William Clark Park at Cotton Wood Beach, and the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge trail (no dogs or bicycles allowed on the Refuge trail).
Within quick driving distance of Troutdale, Gresham and Portland, this is a dog walker's paradise. Great views, an extensive trail system, a huge dog off-leash area, a bird blind and easy mountain biking make this site a quick retreat from the city.
This urban greenway runs along Salmon Creek between Lake River and in Felida and Salmon Creek Regional Park/Klineline Pond in Hazel Dell. It includes bottomlands, wetlands and forested hillsides on both sides of Salmon Creek and the north end of Cougar Creek. Despite the urban setting, the greenway is extensively used by local wildlife, including migratory waterfowl and other birds, deer, coyotes, rabbits, opossums, raccoons and beavers. A 3-mile-long multi-use trail extends through a portion of the greenway between NW 36th Avenue in Felida and Salmon Creek Regional Park/Klineline Pond.
Powell Butte, an extinct cinder cone volcano, rises near the headwaters of Johnson Creek. The 608 acre park connects to the 40-Mile Loop and features over nine miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.
Located within the wild and scenic Sandy River Gorge, Oxbow Regional Park offers rare access to many of the region’s natural wonders while providing a variety of unique recreational opportunities. The river draws swimmers, rafters, kayakers and drift boats carrying anglers.
Located twenty miles east of the city of Portland, Oregon, and the northern Willamette River valley, the Mt. Hood National Forest extends south from the strikingly beautiful Columbia River Gorge across more than sixty miles of forested mountains, lakes and streams to Olallie Scenic Area, a high lake basin under the slopes of Mt. Jefferson. Visitors enjoy fishing, camping, boating and hiking in the summer, hunting in the fall, and skiing and other snow sports in the winter.
