Fanno Creek Beaverton Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Start point: Garden Home Trailhead
or
- Start point: Denney Road Trailhead
- End point: Scholls Ferry Road
- Hike type: In and Out
- Distance: 8.5 miles but can easily be done in shorter segments
- Elevation gain: 125 feet
- High point: 315 feet
- Difficulty: Easy
- Seasons: All year
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: No
- Crowded: On weekends and after work
- Fanno Creek Beaverton Accessibility Information (Access Recreation)
Contents |
Description
The Fanno Creek Trail is a suburban walking/jogging/cycling greenway that currently runs through Beaverton and Tigard. Some of the route is on city sidewalks. Plans are to extend the trail from the Tualatin to the Willamette River in downtown Portland. The total length of the current trail is 8.3 miles one-way including the short extension beyond the Tigard Library. Most people do only parts of this trail, which runs through several parks in each city. The description below divides the Beaverton section of the trail into two parts.
1. Garden Home Recreation Center to Denney Road
Distance: 4.9 miles round-trip
From the Garden Home Trailhead, take the paved trail from the north end of the parking lots. To your right is a cutting that once was the route of the old Oregon Electric Railroad. Steps lead down to the right, and you can follow a dirt path under maples to rejoin the paved trail in a shady cedar grove. The Portland Golf Club soon shows itself behind high fences on the right, and there are small meadows and wetlands. Interpretive signs detail the history of the railroad. Pass the newly constructed 86th Avenue Pump Station complex after negotiating a boardwalk, and then cross SW 86th. Soon you'll pass over Fanno Creek itself: you can look down to see the rotting pilings that supported the old railroad bridge here. The route enters a tunnel of green dominated by hazel; in the winter, look up into the bare branches and see numerous leafy squirrel nests. You'll then pass Vista Brook Park, which has a small loop trail, pond and a line of cottonwoods that glow bright yellow in the fall. You need to cross SW 90th before you come to the new traffic circle (2022) at SW 92nd. Here, use the crosswalk on the south side of the circle to join the sidewalk on Allen Boulevard for a block next to stormwater swales planted with sedges and rushes. Cross Scholls Ferry Road at another busy intersection, and then turn left.
Keep straight on a one-block section of the Fanno Creek Trail along Scholls Ferry Road. This section of trail, opened in 2012, then veers right into a natural ash swale with boardwalks. There’s even some false hellebore growing in these bottomlands. Just above to the right is the embankment of a railroad spur that once served businesses here. Fanno Creek, now disguised by plantings of riparian species, runs to the left. The trail skirts the edge of a new horseshoe-shaped reservoir on land that once held the Greenwood Inn. A big shapely old oak tree has been preserved here. The route veers left at a concrete barrier and crosses Fanno Creek to pass a wetland and reach 105th Avenue.
From here, walk south on 105th past a business park and reach Denney Road. Take the sidewalk up and over Highway 217, the highest point on the trail!
2. Denney Road to Scholls Ferry Road
Distance: 3.6 miles round-trip
This section of the trail begins off Denney Road at the Denney Road Trailhead parking area on the left. The trail heads through a dense green section alongside the creek where Oregon ash and willow dominate. It crosses Hall Boulevard and picks up again a few yards west in Greenway Park. This park has more open space and a playground. There are several small loop options in the area. A bridge leads left to the Augustus Fanno Farmhouse (1857), which is open by appointment only. After this junction the trail splits, but the loop leading left has a section that is permanently closed because it is often flooded. The section leading right goes up past a play area. This part, next to a small creek, also gets flooded because of ongoing beaver activity (the beaver dam is a little downstream). A new gravel trail (2017) makes for a short detour up around the playground. The trail continues down through Greenway Park, reaching Scholls Ferry Road. From here, the trail, described in the Fanno Creek Tigard Hike, follows the creek another four miles to its current end.
In addition to the Garden Home Trailhead and the Denney Road Trailhead, there are trailheads at:
Vista Brook Park, 6410 SW Scholls Ferry Road
Augustus Fanno Farmhouse, 8405 SW Creekside Place (parking evenings and weekends only)
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Dogs on leash
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
- Fanno Creek Regional Trail (Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District)
- Beaverton: Fanno Creek Greenway Trail (Metro)
- Nature and Trails Map (Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District)
- Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District: Trails
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Fanno Creek Beaverton Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Fanno Creek Beaverton Hike
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- Take a Walk: Portland by Brian Barker
- Discovering Portland Parks by Owen Wozniak
- Walk There! 50 Treks In and Around Portland and Vancouver edited by Laura O. Foster
- Wild in the City: Exploring the Intertwine edited by Michael C. Houck and M.J. Cody
- Exploring the Tualatin River Basin by Tualatin Riverkeepers
- Nature Walks In and Around Portland by Karen & Terry Whitehill
- Best Bike Rides: Portland, Oregon by Lizann Dunegan & Ayleen Crotty
- Biking Portland by Owen Wozniak
- Off-Street Paved Bike Paths in Oregon by Rick Bronson
More Links
- Fanno Creek Greenway Trail (Metro)
- Fanno Farmhouse (Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District)
- Fanno Creek (Wikipedia)
- Oregon Electric Railway (Oregon Encyclopedia)
Page Contributors
- bobcat (primary)