4 min
Overview
The 250-acre Graham Oaks Nature Park, opened in 2010, ostensibly protects an oak savanna although it is an oak savanna in the making. There is a wood of oaks on the fringe of the park and a single old tree at the Elder Oak Plaza, but the majority of the oaks here are saplings that will take decades to mature. Metro had originally designated this spot to be a landfill, but local lobbying led to the creation of a regional park after Metro purchased the property in 2001. The extensive meadow here, which is former farmland, has been seeded with native plants and the Legacy Creek Trail takes you into lush woods above Legacy Creek, a tributary of Mill Creek. The trails here are all universal access although the Tonquin Trail is the only wide, paved trail. The park is on the route of the proposed Ice Age Tonquin Trail, a 22-mile route which will run from the banks of the Willamette River in Wilsonville to Cook Park in Tigard and from there hook up with the Fanno Creek Trail. The Ice Age Tonquin Trail will be an interpretive trail that focuses on the causes and effects of the Missoula Floods, the periodic deluges that swept down from what is now western Montana as a series of ice dams were breached at the end of the last Ice Age. Walk out of the parking area on the paved Gateway Trail. Pass a covered picnic area and an information kiosk, which tells you that the park will resemble an oak savannah in about 100 years. You can also admire the 5,000 pound acorn carved out of basalt by sculptor Mauricio Saldana. Reach a four-way junction and go left on the paved Tonquin Trail, the universal access path that goes through the center of the park. The path heads through an open field with plantings of oak and ponderosa pine as well as various shrubs (there were 15,000 oak saplings planted here). At the next junction, make a left on gravel Coyote Way and then turn left again on the Legacy Creek Trail. This trail heads into woods of Douglas-fir, red alder, western red-cedar, red elderberry, waterleaf, nettle, and big-leaf ma
Trail Stats
0.0 km
18 m
0 m
0 m
—
Photos
400px-GrahamOaksMap
400px-GrahamOaksMap
250px-Bird_blind_at_wetlands%2C_Tonquin_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks
250px-Bird_blind_at_wetlands%2C_Tonquin_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks
250px-Meadow_checker-mallow_%28Sidalcea_campestris%29%2C_Graham_Oaks
250px-Meadow_checker-mallow_%28Sidalcea_campestris%29%2C_Graham_Oaks
250px-Overlook%2C_Legacy_Creek_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks
250px-Overlook%2C_Legacy_Creek_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks
400px-Elder_oak%2C_Tonquin_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks
400px-Elder_oak%2C_Tonquin_Trail%2C_Graham_Oaks