Outings! – Fairview Wetlands Scenic Trail

This trail truly lives up to the #urbanoutdoors vibe. Back in the 90s, when the Fairview Industrial Park was built, the City decided that it wanted to offset all of that industrialization by replacing some of the lost habitat with a man-made, urban wetland. 

Honestly? Pretty dope of them. The trailhead is directly across the street from the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, and I’m guessing that has a bit to do with how well maintained this trail is. The trail itself is a 1.1 mile loop of wood chip/bark dust that wanders around a marshy area full of birds and frogs. 

It was a little chilly for frogs or insects, but the birds were very active and loud, which helped cover some of the road noise. Some. Definitely not all. There’s no hiding the fact that you’re in the middle of town on this trail. 

On a brisk Sunday morning (it was about 50º and breezy) we only saw one other couple on the trail and a jogger on the sidewalk parallel to the trail. This route is dog friendly, but they must remain on-leash at all times. Which seems fair since the whole point of the wetland is to support urban wildlife and free-roaming dogs are prone to chasing, killing, eating, and otherwise terrorizing wildlife. 

Speaking of wildlife, we saw (and heard) several types of birds, especially some variety of warbler according to my google search, as well as evidence of birds of prey. There were several half-ingested mice on the trail.

While this is technically a loop trail, if you don’t start in just the right spot then there’s an out-and-back portion too. Because this was our first time here, and there isn’t a ton of info available online, we started kinda in the middle, followed the loop, and then walked on to the “start” of the trailhead and had to backtrack back to the car. 

So, if you’re a local, here’s what you do: Park in one of the business lots on the southwest side at the corner of Fairview Industrial Drive and 27th Ct (there’s ample parking on the weekends). The trail actually begins in the bend of 27th Ct, and you can see the bark and wood chip trail from the road. From there you follow the path until it forks off to the right and across a little “boardwalk”. Take the fork for a nice, forested trail that eventually loops back up to meet with the main trail and lead you back the way you came. You could, conceivably, do this in reverse and take boardwalk path on your way back. Fielder’s choice.

Because of our unfamiliarity with the trail we ended up doing about 1.27 miles, which was totally fine with us. 

It’s been an extremely dry summer and fall so far. It just started raining this weekend, so the wetland wasn’t very wet. I imagine that, in winter and spring, there’s a lot more water. Late spring will probably be a very nice time to revisit this trail and see how it’s transformed. However, the fall colors are finally here and they were on full display on the trail today!

All in all, a nice, easily accessible trail to spend some quiet time with nature when leaving town just isn’t feasible. It seems likely that we’ll revisit this trail in the future.