Firelane 7 & Hardesty Trail Loop

Distance: 3.4 miles round trip

Travel time to trailhead: 25 minutes

Walk duration: 2 hours

Conditions: Most of this walk is on the Wildwood Trail which can get pretty muddy in the winter.

Total elevation change: 130 ft. Very little change in altitude from Firelane 7 which is at approximately 980 ft, and the Wildwood Trail at about 850 ft.

Brief summary: Nice mid-park walk. This walk is designed around using mostly the Wildwood Trail, since this portion is far enough away from either popular access points in NW Portland or Germantown Rd. Most of the traffic in this area tends to be more vertical using Firelane 7 and Springville as the main arterials. Thus we’ve chosen the little used Trillium trail, and the nicely designed (lots of steps in all the right places) Hardesty Trail to connect back up to Firelane 7.

___________________________________________________

Access to this trail is via Skyline Boulevard. Drive up NW Cornell, turn right on NW Thompson and then right again on Skyline Boulvard - proceed northwards past the cemetery, Salzman Drive and just past the western leg of NW Springville Rd (left). Turn right into the eastern leg of NW Springville road to find good parking near the Springville gate.

For this walk we will proceed past the gate and along the rigdgetop following Firelane 7. This is a very pleasant and mostly level Firelane with overhanging grooves of alder trees - giving it the feeling of being inside some long wooded corridor.

The first trail that you encounter (.08 miles) will be the Hardesty Trail climbing up to join Firelane 7 from the left. This is where you will emerge from on the final leg of this walk. Almost immediately beyond this trailhead (.05 miles)

Clustered Woodlover (Hypholoma Fasciculare) One of the most common mushrooms visible in the park is the Sulphur Tuft , or commonly referred to as the Clustered Woodlover. These mushrooms grow on rotting wood and often grace the moss covered logs that lie strew around the park. This mushroom has a narrow stalk, a gilled cap with an orange-yellow cap that is not slimy. While this wood-rotter is great for recycling trees, it is not recommended for your dinner plate as it is poisonous. Bon Appetit!

you will see a small unmarked trail heading off to your right (see above picture) just before the red-striped marker for the gas line. This is the Trillium trail we will take to reach Wildwood. The Trillium trail is clear enough to follow down the slope, but it is narrow with lots of overhanging limbs and many twists and turns until you emerge (.25 miles) at the creekbed that marks its juncture with the Wildwood trail. For a variant on this walk see alternative described below.

At the Wildwood Trail turn left and continue to follow the trail all the way around the ridge (upon which Firelane 7 descends). Halfway along the slope you’ll cross a buried gas line crossing. At the eastern end of the ridge you’ll pass the junction with Firelane 7 (“Oil line Rd”) , then the junction with 7a (“Gas line Rd.”), then the Ridge Trail junction, and finally after 3 miles of winding around this long ridge you’ll return to the lower end of the Hardesty Trail. Along the way you can note the damage that winter weather has done to the trail, washing out culverts. Ascend this (.48 miles) to Firelane 7 and turn right to return to the Springville Gate and your parked car.

Another variant to this walk diverges at the bottom of the unmarked trail that descended from Firelane 7. Instead of turning left to follow the ridge out to the end, you cross the footbridge and proceed eastwards along the Wildwood Trail around the point until you cross under the powerlines. Here you take the unmarked trek down under the powerlines until they connect with Lief Ericson (.29 miles) below. Now you proceed to follow Lief Ericson northwards, past Firelane 7 ridge (7a connects with Lief Ericson), past the junction with the Ridge trail and after a little more than 2 miles you reach the Hardesty Trail that will return you to Firelane 7 atop the ridge and thence to the Springville gate and the car parking. This walk is about 4.5 miles in length and combines some more adventurous routes under the powerlines with more sedate terrain on Lief Ericson.