The Fanno Creek Trail is part of the Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District offering several miles of paved trail along Fanno Creek in Beaverton and Tigard. The current trail is 8.3-miles in length with plans to eventually extend the trail between Willamette Park in Portland to the Tualatin River in Durham. The urban trail passes through a number of parks, and we planned on hiking a section that included five such parks. Before starting our hike though we made a short detour to check out Koll Wetlands.
There is no hike at Koll Wetlands, you just park behind some businesses and look for birds and other wildlife.
We arrived too early for decent pictures due to cloud cover limiting light, but we spotted a rabbit and a number of ducks and other birds.
Duck and ducklings along with a killdeer.
After checking out the wetlands we drove to the Denney Road Trailhead.
We headed south on the trail into Fanno Creek Park and followed the paved path 0.7-miles to a crossing of SW Hall Boulevard.
Chickadee
Mallards
Fanno Creek
Thimbleberry and service berry
We crossed SW Hall Boulevard and entered Greenway Park.
Northern flicker
There are several loop options available in this park if the water isn’t too high. The water was low enough today that we were able to stay left at all junctions and only had to navigate a few feet of muddy, flooded trail.
Hummingbird
Red-winged blackbird
Squirrel
The Greenway Loop Trail had the only flooded section on this day.
Wetlands along the Greenway Loop Trail.
Goose
Hooded mergansers
After rejoining the Fanno Creek Trail at the southern end of Greenway Park we passed under SW Scholls Ferry Road.
This is another section that may flood at high water times.
Shortly after passing under the road the trail passes a sign for Englewood Park.
We spent some time here watching a female mallard attempt to join the drakes along with her ducklings only to be repeatedly chased off.
Mallards ducklings
The ducklings finally making it across the trail.
Goose and gosling
Avens
The trail jogged right at a crossing of SW North Dakota Street then crossed SW Tigard St to enter Dirksen Nature Park.
Camas
Dirksen Nature Park
Viewing platform
Wetlands from the viewing platform.
Dove
Finch
Robin
We continued through the nature park and crossed SW Tiedeman Ave. Two tenths of a mile later we arrived at the Woodard Park Trailhead near the park’s playground.
Lupine
Woodard Park Trailhead.
We made this our turnaround point and headed back. We stayed left again in Greenway Park to complete the three loops there. The trail was fairly busy on the way back but not too crowded and there was still quite a bit of wildlife to see.
This may be a lesser goldfinch, I wasn’t able to see anything but its rear end though.
Spotted towhee
Wood duck
Our out-and-back on the Fanno Creek Trail came to 7.1 miles with minimal elevation gain.
This was a nice urban hike, and we can see why it’s popular with all types of trail users. Dirksen Nature Park was a highlight and looked like it would be a great place to bring the kiddos. Happy Trails!
wanderingyuncks 