We were spending the weekend in Portland and didn't want to travel too far to hike, so we opted to stay in the city. Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the country and with more than 80 miles of trails, we certainly had some options. There are trailheads on all sides of the park but we went for a new one on the southeast side of the park called Lower Saltzman. It is sort of in a strange park of town, and you drive up a random road to get there, but it does end in a dead-end parking area.
We went up what ended up being the Firelane 4 and continued to gain up that rather steeply for some time before taking a right onto a flat, wide trail and continued on until we found a sign and then went up again and... honestly you get the point. It's a *massive* trail network. My word of advice is to pay attention to signs and maps and make sure you have an idea of where you're going because I can see how you could either 1. get lost or 2. end up at the wrong trailhead. That said, I got in some gain and about 6 miles and some pretty fall leaves and quiet in the city.
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