Balch Canyon Loop Hike

Overview

Donald Macleay, a well-known Portland merchant, donated the current area of Balch Canyon to the City of Portland in 1897 partly, it seems, because he was tired of paying taxes on it but also in commemoration of the 60th year of Queen Victoria’s reign (Macleay was a Scotsman). One condition of the donation was that trails be wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs (a section of trail starting from the Lower Macleay Park Trailhead is still wheelchair accessible). The original donation land claim for the area, however, was filed by Danford Balch, who settled here with his large family in 1850. Young Mortimer Stump, a hired hand staying on the property, began courting Balch’s oldest daughter, Anna, but Balch denied Mortimer’s request for her hand. The young couple eloped to Vancouver when Anna turned sixteen. A couple of weeks after the wedding, Balch greeted his son-in-law at the Stark Street Ferry with a double-barreled shotgun blast to the face, killing him instantly. Balch was put in jail, but he escaped and disappeared into the jungles of what is now Forest Park. After several months, he was located and rearrested. This time he was tried, convicted of murder, and hanged in front of several hundred fellow citizens, including a tearless Anna and members of the Stump family, on October 17th, 1859. He was the first person legally hanged in Oregon. Before Bull Run began to supply most of Portland’s drinking water in 1895, Balch Creek was a major source for the city’s supply. The loop hike can begin at either the Aspen Trailhead or the Lower Macleay Park Trailhead and includes a traverse of the Wildwood Trail, the mysterious Stone House, Portland’s tallest tree, the massive debris rack where Balch Creek disappears into a sewer pipe, a crossing of the 1905 Balch Gulch Bridge (the oldest bridge in Oregon), and a 101-step staircase! In this description, the outing is described as beginning from the Aspen Trailhead, where a weathered sign offers distances to various points in Forest Park. Hike up a gully from the scre

Trail Stats

Photos

250px-The_Stone_House%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

250px-The_Stone_House%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

400px-BalchCanyonLoopMap

400px-BalchCanyonLoopMap

160px-Portland%27s_tallest_tree%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

160px-Portland%27s_tallest_tree%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

250px-Waterfall_on_Balch_Creek%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

250px-Waterfall_on_Balch_Creek%2C_Balch_Canyon%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

250px-Above_Balch_Canyon%2C_Wildwood_Trail%2C_Forest_Park

250px-Above_Balch_Canyon%2C_Wildwood_Trail%2C_Forest_Park

250px-Fairy_bells_%28Disporum_hookeri%29%2C_Wildwood_Trail%2C_Forest_Park

250px-Fairy_bells_%28Disporum_hookeri%29%2C_Wildwood_Trail%2C_Forest_Park

400px-Balch_Creek%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

400px-Balch_Creek%2C_Lower_Macleay_Park

Tags