Hello friends! It’s another installment of “Attempts to explore the Westside more”. This time we’ll be heading to a pretty popular trail: Fanno Creek. This path follows the namesake creek from Beaverton to Tigard, a distance of about five miles one-way. I’ve been on it a few times when I’ve been out that way, but this was the first time in eons that I made the trail itself a destination.
On Saturday March 13th, we needed to pick up Emee’s Raleigh Sports from North Portland Bikeworks. It was already afternoon, we wanted to ride somewhere, and we had the van with my Raleigh Superbe in it. So we decided that it would be a good day to head to Fanno Creek. We parked at the south end at the Tigard Library.
The trail is very meandery and winding, mimicking the lazy path of the creek. It’s a multi-use path from an earlier era, probably built more for walking than bicycling, but that doesn’t stop cyclists from being dominant on the path, especially on a nice spring day. Most of the people we saw were families and “recreational” cyclists, but there was the inevitable impatient roadie or two. (Grumble.)
The main (and obvious) feature of the trail is Fanno Creek. The stream begins in SW Portland in the Hillsdale neighborhood, flows west first, then turns south and flows in that general direction for most of its fifteen miles until it flows ultimately into the Tualatin River. Most of the creek here is pretty slow moving, which has made it great beaver habitat. Beavers were once pretty rare here, now that is no longer the case, so much so that the beaver dams cause regular flooding of the path. We didn’t see any beavers, but saw a lot of birds in the wetlands.
We rode north for about four miles, then turned around as the day was growing short. We had a nice dinner at the Cooper Mountain Ale House which is right along the creek in downtown Tigard. I’m sure we’ll be back again soonish. I’m getting the itch to explore more of this area again, and now that I’m more comfortable with riding the MAX (and have a stock of NF 95 masks) it’ll be easier to get out this way without riding 10-15 miles through Portland or taking the van.
For photos from this ramble, see the dynamic flicker album below. Or click here.
Urban Adventure League 
Reblogged this on Society Of Three Speeds and commented:
A three speed adventure on a bike path over on the west side.