This was not a big hike, but it was fun, and it was technically a hike. It was a “walk” led by a Metro Naturalist down into Newell Creek Canyon in Oregon City. This land was purchased by Metro in 1995, but it was just left to be. Last year, a bond was passed to allow them to do some maintenance/improvement to it, so they are beginning the process of determining exactly what that will mean. They have started to remove invasive species and will be doing re-planting of native plants soon.

The walk started at Nelson’s Nautilus and followed the power line corridor for a bit down to a gate in the fence that surrounds the area. The gate is apparently an old logging road that took you down into the canyon. The naturalist that led the hike said the area was logged in the 40’s and 50’s. It has recovered pretty well. The road was pretty narrow and very muddy, but still a very recognizable road until we got close to the bottom. One the way down she stopped and showed us some native plants, invasive plants and several tracks in the mud. It was an interesting, although very slow walk down. As we descended into the canyon, the trees got larger, and we saw several areas where there had been homeless people camping. We stopped at a creek that they named Tumble Creek (also called Red Soils Creek):

The road kind of stopped there, but there is what looks like a user trail that continues north past the creek. After spending a bit of time down at the creek, we turned around and headed back up the hill, back to the starting point. It was a short walk through an interesting area. I think I will be returning (with others) to explore more in the future.