Alder Trail

The Walk

Alder runs not quite a mile, one-way, climbing about 250 feet from Leif Erikson Drive at its 1½-mile marker up to the Wildwood Trail near Wildwood’s 9¼-mile point. For most of that distance it’s an easy, gentle grade — a soft dirt singletrack winding up through the red alder it’s named for. Partway up it dips into a gully and crosses a small creek on a footbridge, the kind of low, wet pocket where the air cools and licorice fern climbs the maple limbs. Then, in its final stretch, it drops the friendly act: the last hundred yards up to the Wildwood junction pitch up steeply, a short honest grunt to finish on.

At the bottom, where Alder meets Leif Erikson, a small bronze plaque marks the road’s 1980 rebuild — a quiet civic footnote worth a glance, and a story that belongs to Leif Erikson Drive, not to this trail. Alder’s own gift is the calm.

Listen For This is a trail for the ears. With the crowds elsewhere, the understory here gets loud in the small way forests do — a Pacific wren throwing its whole body into song, the creek working the gully, the drip and tick of a wet canopy. Come to Alder when you want to hear the forest instead of the other hikers.

Runner’s note Foot-only, low-traffic, and short — a clean, quiet rung to slot into a south-end loop off Leif Erikson without dodging bikes or crowds. Just save something for the top: the last pitch to the Wildwood is brief but steep, and the lightly used tread stays soft and slick through the wet months.

Before you go

Because so few feet pass this way, Alder’s tread is rougher and softer than its busy neighbors, and the creek crossing turns slick in the wet season — sure footing matters more here than the easy grade suggests. It’s foot-only; leave the bikes for Leif Erikson at the bottom.

Come for what it withholds rather than what it shows. Stand a moment on the footbridge before the final climb, where the creek runs through the alders and nobody else is around. That emptiness is the point.