For our first hike of the year, we decided to visit the very popular Wildwood Trail, which is in Forest Park, within the city of Portland. It was an easy drive to the trailhead, with plenty of street parking when we arrived at about 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

This was an easy, starter section of the Wildwood (from green circle 9 in the map above to green circle 11), without a lot of elevation gain or descent. The weather was a slightly crisp 44 degrees. I was wearing merino base layers under my hiking pants and jacket and was glad I did. Next time I might take some light gloves, but they were not strictly necessary.

Part of the trail was washed out by recent rains. It was a balance-beam crossing to the other side, which I completed going out but deeply planted one boot in the mud on the way back.

The trail was quite busy for a cool January day; mostly trail runners. A few folks with dogs.

It was fun to spot the Wildwood Trail blue diamond in lots of spots along the trail.

You can see we also got a little bit of sun. It felt really good to get back out on a trail after the busy holidays.

The park offers this free, printable map: https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/forest-park-trails-printable-map.pdf. Happy hiking!