“Wanna go walk ‘The Wildwood Sequence’”, they said. “It will be a neat thing were you can walk part of the Wildwood Trail between two of the locations in the film and a third that’s a really neat rose garden”, they said.
What they didn’t say:
- To get to the trail from the rose garden, you have to walk a couple of blocks, go up a steep flight of switchback stairs, walk for several hundred yards on a narrow path alongside a street but separated from it by a metal fence, then go up another smaller set of steep stairs before you even get to where the trail starts.
- The names of the trail sections are different than what’s on Google Maps. Google Maps seems to assume most everything here is “Wildwood Trail”.
- The trail markers don’t exactly line up with the trails, leading to a couple of places where you might take the wrong path.
- One of the markers from if you started at a different location tells you there’s two ways to go to the next major location, but they don’t tell you which one you have to take if you want to go to the major location (Pittock Mansion) after the first (Hoyt Arboretum). Of course, if you were actually able to find the start of the trail near the rose garden, you wouldn’t even be on this section of it.
- The pictures you might see of the trail don’t show you that this end of the Sequence has a lot of sections where it’s so narrow one person has to stand to the side if another wants to pass, and is over rough and somewhat steep ground where tree roots and rocks stick up out of the packed ground. The pictures make it look like all you need is tennis shoes to go walk it.
So after I got done finding all of the crows in the “Wildwood: Follow the Crows” outdoor art trail on a different trip there, I go back to Portland, Oregon last weekend because I did want to try walking The Wildwood Sequence, to make the experience complete.
I split it up. Did the stretch between the Bird Alliance of Oregon (formerly the Audubon Society of Portland, and the location of the Avian Principality in the Wildwood books and upcoming movie) and Pittock Mansion (another location in the books and movie) pretty easy. Just 1.7 miles each way on a good, well-marked trail. It’s uphill more than level, but it’s manageable. Only one instance where the trail marker wasn’t quite right because the sign pivoted a little on the pole and pointed at the wrong path. No problem. Got a lot of compliments from other hikers on my walking stick that has a carved bald eagle head on the top. (Bought it, didn’t make it myself.)
I decided to take a break and drive to the other end at the International Test Rose Garden to do the other stretch. Map says it’s 2.5-3 miles one way, so even a way out of shape guy like myself could to that in three hours, just like the map says. Get to the Garden, find parking about a quarter mile away, pay for three hours, then go looking for the trail head.
And keep looking. Still looking. Where is it?
Okay, the trail runs right along this one street. Start hoofing it, expecting to find some way to get on the trail. 20 minutes later, finally! I’m on the Wildwood Trail. Only, where am I? Uh, this way, I guess?
Pass parking spot I could have started at if I had known it was there. Then I get to the marker in point 4 above. Decide to take a left because that seems to line up with Google Maps. Turned around 10 minutes later when I realize that’s the wrong way. Forty-five minutes into my allotted three hours and I’ve barely gotten anywhere.
Keep walking and Google Maps says I’m heading roughly back towards the Rose Garden. Progress?
About a half hour later, come across one of the trail markers that gets a C in effectiveness. Note that path is called “Fairview Spur”, not “Wildwood Trail”. Thanks Google Maps. I’ll check it on the way back.
Keep walking, start wondering why the inside of my shoes feel uneven, like they’re the worn pair I keep for yardwork. Look at shoes. No, they’re the newer ones. (Narrator: “They weren’t.”)
Pass a very nice and obvious marker confirming I’m on the Wildwood Trail. Start looking at the time on my phone. Almost two hours and I’m nowhere near Pittock? (whimper)
I get to the point where the trail crosses a second street and I stop. There’s a parking lot for the trail, Maps says I’m about a third of the way to Pittock and there’s one hour left on the meter. How strictly is parking enforced back there?
I can’t risk it. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to make it back. Back down the hill and back down the trail I go. Take Fairview Spur. Get to next intersection. Garden Link Trail going in the direction of “Gardens”? Gets my vote.
Stairs. Why did it have to be stairs? Okay. Wasn’t expecting that. I’m tired, my feet ache, my legs ache, my back aches, but I don’t have a choice. Carefully start hobbling down the steps, one at a time. Make it down onto a paved path with a metal fence separating it from the street. I see people walking around on the other side of the fence near a building, all tourist-like. That means there should be a gate somewhere so I can be done with this. (Narrator: “There wasn’t.”)
Walk what seems like an interminable amount of time next to where Google Maps tells me I should be walking, which is on the street on the other side of the fence. More stairs, more twisty than the first. Oh, joy. But I can see a street and parked cars at the bottom. I hear an odd “thwock” noise every so often. That has to be the end of the “trail”. (Narrator: “It was.”) Hobble down those stairs one at a time, even more gingerly. Pass the tennis courts. Make it back to my car. No parking ticket, for the win!
Five days later, my body finally stops aching and I can start walking normally again.
