Gresham-Fairview Trail Hike

Overview

This flat and paved urban pathway runs along a course once occupied by the Portland Traction Company’s electric railroad. It offers a variety of scenery: backyard vegetable gardens, industrial yards, wetlands, and horse pastures. The Gresham-Fairview Trail connects with the Springwater Corridor and there are also plans to connect it with the 40-mile Loop to the north. From the north end of the current trail, walk south along the wide corridor past backyards and vegetable plots. The trail is lined with plantings of cherry laurel, abelia, plum, and cotoneaster. Cross Holladay Street (You can go right here to connect with the Salish Ponds Hike) and pass by a thicket, on your right, of cherry laurel, Armenian blackberry, and hawthorn. Take the pushbutton crosswalk over Glisan Street and continue past private homes with small stands of Douglas-fir here and there. Before Stark Street, note a line of black locust trees to the left. After the Stark Street crossing, the trail winds a little through and industrial area and reaches Burnside, which you can negotiate at another pushbutton crossing. Go left on a sidewalk to Birdsdale Avenue and turn right. Take the sidewalk south to cross a MAX light rail line. From here, the trail heads off to the right between cyclone fences. Pass along Trimet’s Ruby Junction Rail Operations Facility to your right: this is where MAX trains come to get rest and repairs. After the yard, willow and cottonwood-lined Fairview Creek runs to your right. The trail rises a little and crosses Division Street. Pass along plantings of cherry and aspen and reach a gravel road bed peeling off to the right. This track is closed to the public and accesses a powerline corridor running over rehabilitated wetlands. Walk under powerlines and look right to see Grant Butte and the wetlands below it. With a pair of binoculars, you should be able to observe a variety of waterfowl as well as kingfishers and sometimes ospreys. The blackberry thickets alongside the trail host vocal and active songbirds. A stair

Trail Stats

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