Forest Park (Lower Macleay to Pittock)- choking on cotton!

Thursday was a great 4th of July! It's a four day weekend for me from work so I figured I'd go for some great hikes each morning. It's not going to happen like that though :( But what I'm missing the hikes for is even better so that's ok.
Since I had a ton of time on Thurs morning (plans weren't till the afternoon) I wanted to do the Lower Macleay hike up to Macleay park and then take the wildwood trail up to Pittock mansion. I've done this hike 3 times in total now. Once with my kids the entire way, Macleay to Pittock with their friends, Lower Macleay to Macleay with the kids and husband, and then the full way myself. So you'd think I could find Lower Macleay by now. Nope. And I didn't want to use my phones gps because I wanted to save the battery for runkeeper and music. And I figured Macleay (that any gps knows the name of) would have a full parking lot. So instead, I found trails just up the road from Macleay park and headed up from there. Basically, this meant I was going from the halfway point to the top, back down to lower Macleay, then back up to midpoint. There are two tunnels after you pass Macleay towards downtown portland. They're not that far from the park. Between the two tunnels is side parking for trails. I parked at the Tunnel trail (just after the tunnel nearest downtown portland. It's a tiny tiny trail, but it hurts. Like very much hurts. Like it was only .3 miles and I had to take a break midway up. My thighs were on fire. Am I out of shape? Yes. But I'm pretty sure when I was in shape, this would have been steep. Of course Sasha had no issues with it. Do dogs even really know what the burn feels like? I had her off leash for this point because I wanted to die and didn't feel like her tugging all over the leash. Tunnel trail takes you up to Cumberland trail. I took right there towards the mansion, and eventually Cumberland took me to Wildwood. From the bottom of Tunnel trail up to the mansion, it was .9 miles.

Front of Pittock in the morning

Other than Tunnel trail, I was constantly getting passed by people that were actually jogging up these trails towards the mansion. You definitely need a leash for this part. There was one guy that had weights on his ankles and arms and was going full speed. I had no clue whether I should have cheered him on for being awesome or flipped him off for making me feel less awesome. I settled with saying good morning and grumbling that I would eventually get to the point he's at.

Once up to pittock, I took a few quick pictures but did not follow the trail behind the mansion. If you get a chance to come here, go onto the grounds and follow the trail to the back yard. The view is wonderful! I would have gone back there but there were too many people walking the grounds and I was wanting to get 5 miles in and head home.
Heading back down the mountain. I decided to jog a little. I've never jogged down a mountain. I didn't do all of it, but I did a good chunk. It's actually a lot of fun if you have good ankles. I'm normally pretty accident prone but trails seem to be my thing and I didn't fall at all. Sasha was a big fan of it also. We stayed on the wildwood trail the entire way down instead of heading back to the car. This trail leads you to Macleay park (across the street) and then heads to lower Macleay from there.
The view on Lower Macleay is sooooo much different than the upper part of the mountain. Mainly because the Lower Macleay trail follows a stream. It's also very light hills until you get to towards macleay. I'm pretty thankful for this because it's also the longer part of this "loop".  Most hikers will only do lower Macleay up to Macleay and head back down so be prepared to share the trail with people going the opposite way of you. It's cottonwood season. This had part of the trail covered in white. It was beautiful. But inhaling it isn't fun. We had to stop for a second because I inhaled a bit that was falling off a tree. I bet I looked awesome almost dieing because of a tree.

"Witch House"

When we got to Lower Macleay park (under the big bridge), we turned back around and headed back up. At this point I was tired. Very tired. My foot that constantly has issues with plantar faciitis was hurting. Sasha was itching to get off the leash. But we were still having fun because this park is so much fun to just look at. We ended up stopping at the "witch house" (the one in the pictures) and looking around for a break. This was a good idea. Did it add a little time to the hike? Yes. But we needed a break. The upper part up to Pittock was probably not a wise idea to start out with and then head to the easy part. I will probably not start in the middle ever again.
When we got to Macleay, my choices were to go partway back up the mountain taking wildwood, hit cumberland, then head back down tunner, OR follow the road back to my car. I chose the road. I didn't want to go uphill anymore.

Here's where I'm really happy that I had runkeeper on. It has a map (even the free version) that you can bring up while still walking. Because I took the road in from Portland and only went under one tunnel I forgot completely that there was another tunnel, so on my way back, the first tunnel was not the one I had driven under. I had a mini panic attack the closer I got to it and did not see my car or the lot I had parked in. Common sense told me (hey, there must be a second identical tunnel after this) but my "I got up at 5 am off of very little sleep to do this" brain thought maybe I had misjudged how far the lot was from the tunnel and needed to go back or Macleay was on a different road than the one I had come in on. I stopped and took out runkeeper and thankfully it showed it was still just down the road.
End result when we did get to the car: 5.2 miles done, I felt accomplished and sweaty, and Sasha fell asleep immediately after we got in the car. Uphill hiking really takes a lot out of you.

Runkeeper GPS Happy: Yes  
Dog friendly: Yes (leashed)  
Path- dirt and rock
Good for medium distance (over 2 under 10) to long distance (multiple trails will take you much further than I went)
- wide enough for 2 people  
Quiet :)  
5.2 miles down
Total for month= 14.3
  Left to go this month=60.7

Tuckered out Sasha