Monday, February 4th - Tryon Creek State Park

One more thing to add to the list of Why I Love Living in Portland: Tryon Creek Park. This is yet another of those places that feels like it's in the middle of nowhere but is really about 20 minutes from home. The park is 645 wooded acres with many different trail options – we were following the one from our “Easy Day Hikes” book, one big loop to the south of the Nature Center, then another narrower loop to the north.

The path starts out easy: well graveled, wide enough to walk side-by-side and flat. Ho-hum, we thought, another boring trail. The map shows the path crossing the creek, paralleling it for a while before crossing it again, circling away then back to another bridge and so on. It does not show that the creek is in a deep gully and every time we had to cross it meant a trek down to and then back up from the creek. Good thing it's a pretty little creek, very happy and babbly (I love noisy creeks) or we might have grown to hate it. We seemed to go down toward it and up away from it a lot.

That being said, it's totally worth it. Everything is covered in moss, which probably isn't very good for the trees but makes for a brilliantly green landscape. The trails are well maintained and they've put steps in the steeper sections so you don't have to slide up and down the hills when it's muddy. And there's a suspension bridge! Not very long and not very high up off the creek, but it is reassuringly sturdy so we bounced our way across it. And it was perfect - just bouncy enough to be fun without being scary.

So, four miles today and a lot of it up and down (repeatedly) but I think we did really well. I didn't whine or suggest quitting even once. Okay, I did suggest it once, but that was out of concern for Katje's sore knee. No, really. Having survived both Council Crest and Forest Park, we have new confidence in our ability to rise to a walking challenge. I know I'm capable of making it up a hill without dying and I no longer worry about whether my heart, my legs or my lungs will give out first. Though if I had to choose I'm pretty sure it would be my lungs...which means my heart and legs are getting stronger, because last month I probably would have gone with one of those. Progress!