Peninsula Crossing-Columbia Slough Hike

Overview

The Peninsula Crossing Trail, completed in 1996, takes advantage of public rights of way to link the Willamette and Columbia Rivers across North Portland. There are various pieces of art along the trail funded by the One Percent for the Arts program. The last mile and a quarter of the trail runs along Portland Road, so if you don't want to hike along an industrial artery, take instead the Columbia Slough Trail. This trail runs along a dike above the site of the inundated city of Vanport and ends at the Vancouver Avenue Bridge, with ambitious plans for extensions. This is a land of railroads, wastewater treatment plants, a golf course, and car and horse racing tracks. However, the Columbia Slough itself supports abundant bird life, so look for bald eagles, herons, egrets, ducks, geese, cormorants, coots, and grebes as you hike along. Walk north along the trail through a circle of sculptures. This is a wide, paved walk/biking trail. The trail follows the “Carey Boulevard Corridor” and parallels the one-mile-long Portsmouth Cut of the BNSF Railway. This cutting across the north Portland peninsula was completed in 1903. Pass through a grassy area planted with a few redwoods, madrones and evergreen live oaks. There’s an apartment complex to the right and then a grove of cherry trees. Cross Lombard and then Fessenden Street, eventually passing by maples, cottonwoods, and hazels, to Columbia Boulevard, where you go right. After a couple of blocks, crossing Clarendon, Van Houten and Exeter, walk across Columbia Boulevard and go one block north on N. Portsmouth. Turn right on N. Columbia Court (There's an option to start the hike here at the Columbia Court Trailhead), and get a good view east to Mount Hood. Walk in front of the fenced Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant, Portland’s largest wastewater treatment facility. Look to your right to see the controversial Columbia Wastewater Treatment Building, an eco-friendly state-of-the-art office structure opened at great expense in January, 2014. The trail resu

Trail Stats

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