Pacterra Team Review: Our Favorite Summer Road & Trail Runs
Pacterra Team Review: Our Favorite Summer Roads & Trails
It’s the height of summer and trail season is alive in the PNW. Our team took to the trails and roads this spring/summer in our Pacterra’s to remember why we live here. We wanted to share a few of our staff favorite runs.
We at Pacterra love variety – whether that’s pace, incline, or exploration. Most importantly for us …it’s the view. If you are going to raise the heart rate, might as well do it somewhere pretty.
Below we illustrate our favorite runs so far, with a heavy emphasis on variety and view (pictures are amateur at best). We would also like to acknowledge for any locals – this doesn’t touch the surface of fun summer runs in PDX – but it’s a few of our favorites.
RUN 1: Council Crest
Description: Steep ~2.5 mile climb (5mi roundtrip) with ~1K elevation gain ending with a 360 view of the city, mountains and suburbs.
Starting in downtown (Duniway or Lincoln HS), this is one of our favorites when we are feeling the need for incline. There are several routes through the hill roads (or trails) that avoid cars and offer pleasant scenery as you chug up 1K vertical feet. At the top you're rewarded with sweeping views. You can either catch sunrise views of the cascades or later in the day – beautiful coastal mountain range sunsets. Endorphins get flying and there's always a way to mix up your route and pace.
RUN2: College Street / Cardinell Stairs
Description: A gritty and steep ~3/4 mile hill designed for next level HIT hill sprint workouts. At the base of College St are Cardinell stairs. Steep steps counting around 100 for a nice finish or compliment to the hill climbs.
College Street and the Cardinell stairs are a “choose your own adventure” for HIT training. The general goal is to see if you can sprint from the bottom to the top of College St without stopping. College St has a perfectly steep grade where the strain from the climb decreases oxygen flow to your muscles, so recovery is limited while running. All to say, it burns. Nearby the Cardinell stairs are 30ft away from the base of College St to help finish the workout or offer a compliment to your hill climbs.
There are great views of the city peaking through the trees, but otherwise this training adventure zone has a 100% sucko meter. It’s for those who want a quick down and dirty leg burn with decent views to keep your mind off your aching legs and lungs.
RUN 3: Cape Lookout Trail
Description: Epic coastal trail outside of Tillamook that is 5mi out and back located in Cape Lookout State Park. Out there, you are away from the city, surrounded by old growth forest and offered surreal ocean views. The fun part is grooving through the cape's interior forest and then being spit out cliff side for certain portions of the run. Ultimate spot for sunrise or sunset.
We tackled this trail in early Spring as the sun was rising. Elevation gain was minor, but the nature and views were major. The one surprise was that the trail had not drained from rain earlier in the week and it became more of an obstacle course jumping from root to root along the trail. The pace was slower than intended, but the senses and endorphins were moving fast. Overall, a euphoric start to coastal spring day. Any time you get to hit a trail this beautiful and off grid is a big win for our team.
RUN 4: Wildwood Trail
Description: There’s no better place for trails inside PDX than Forest Park. One of the most popular trails being Wildwood. The beauty of this large trail system is another “choose your own adventure” for elevation, pace or distance. Our route to St. Johns landed just under 16mi as we oscillated elevation and wound along the hillside, deep in Forest Park.
Our team goal for this run was to start from NW PDX, near Chapman Elementary, and take the Wildwood trail all the way to St. Johns to cap off our run with a giant reward meal at John Street Cafe. We would like to acknowledge that very little thought or preparation went into this, other than “Long run in the woods sounds great, and I’d like breakfast afterwards”. We are not seasoned distance runners, this was a stretch for our capabilities, which is what made it fun!
We started near Chapman and ran up to the entrance of Leif Ericson trail where we checked into Wildwood. Once we got 4-5 miles in, the city noise faded away, the dense Ivy was no longer covering every tree and the greenery exploded in the morning light. It was an amazing feeling. Around mile 10 we realized we did not pack enough food or water, but proceeded on with only one minor meltdown around mile 12. The continued up and down of the trails, mixed with the constant switchbacks built into the hillside was unexpected in terms of energy usage. All to say, it was longer and steeper than we anticipated.
Finally we emerged from the forest at the beautiful, but busy, St. Johns bridge and ended at John’s St café for a LARGE meal and much needed water.
Hope you enjoyed this share out from the team, and if you have any trails in your neck of the woods that gets your summer mind feeling right, feel free to share on insta @pacterraathletics.
Thank you for tuning in if you made it this far and stay comfy!