New first rule of walking: never
take more than one map. Especially maps of Mt. Tabor park, because
none of the maps will show the same trails and the whole place is
kind of confusing anyway. After trying to reconcile the map in the
'Walk There' book with the one in the 'Easy Day Hikes' book we picked
up an official park map and (kind of randomly) decided to follow the
blue trail. One problem: the blue trail isn't marked. The top of
the hill looked like a good starting place, so up we went – on the
express trail, apparently. It was very steep, but it certainly got us
to the top quickly. Having summited Mt. Tabor, we asked a nice older
gentleman the way to the blue trail. Not only did he know where the
trail was, he knew where all THREE blue trails were. We picked one
at random and headed down toward the reservoirs.
The city of Portland gets most of
its water from the Bull Run watershed up above the city, and it is
gravity fed into eight different reservoirs throughout the city, four
of which are located at Mt. Tabor, one underground and the other
three uncovered. Shannon walked with us again this week and asked
how they keep people from throwing things into the water.
Umm...yeah. For the sake of everyone who drinks Portland water
(myself included), we're not going to go there. The good news is
that they only fill one reservoir at a time to keep the water fresh,
and they clean the other two while they're empty.
After walking around the two
reservoirs at the bottom of the park we cut a little through a
residential neighborhood and up the path back to the car, which was
parked about halfway up the “mountain”. The good news is that in
our wandering we covered all of the 'Walk There' hike and most of the
'Easy Day Hikes' route, so we're checking them both off and calling
it a two-fer.
One other item of interest: there
is a statue at the top of Mt. Tabor of Oregonian editor Harvey W.
Scott which was designed by Gutzon Borglun, the artist who sculpted
Mount Rushmore. Which makes Portland almost a little bit famous, in
my opinion. Not quite, but close.
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