Cannon Trail

Here is a small Forest Park pleasure that costs nothing and rewards the pedantic: there is no cannon on the Cannon Trail. No artillery, no old fort, no cannonball lodged in a stump for kids to find. The name honors a person — Garnett “Ding” Cannon, who founded the Oregon Parks Foundation — and the trail was built in 2006 from a donation made in his name. So the whole charm here is a naming joke that only lands if you know the story, which now you do.

Take the trail itself for exactly what it is: a short, one-way rung linking Leif Erikson Drive up to the Wildwood Trail near the top of Germantown Road. It’s about a third of a mile, but it climbs — roughly 150 feet, steep for its length — so it earns its keep more as a connector than a destination. Its natural readers are runners and loop-builders looking to hop between the park’s two main arteries without walking the pavement of Germantown Road.

What makes it worth a paragraph is less the walking than the pedigree. In a park stitched together mostly from inherited things — old logging roads, Depression-era firelanes, paths worn in by decades of feet — the Cannon is one of the newest trails here, and one of the few that exists because someone deliberately funded it into being. It’s a good reminder that this forest isn’t only found; parts of it are given.

The Walk

From Leif Erikson, the Cannon points uphill and doesn’t waste time about it, gaining most of its elevation across a third of a mile of second-growth forest before delivering you onto the Wildwood. It’s over quickly, which is the point. There’s nothing to linger for and no view to wait on — just a brisk, shaded climb doing the honest work of connecting a low artery to a high one.

Runner’s note This is a legitimate little grunt, not a stroll — a fast way to trade the wide, forgiving grade of Leif Erikson for the singletrack of the Wildwood (or vice versa) when you’re building a loop up in the Germantown corner. Run it as a climb, not a shortcut; your legs will file it under “hill,” and the descent back down to Leif is quick enough to be fun.

Before you go

The trail is the easy part; getting to this corner of the park is the real errand. The Germantown Road end is remote, the trailhead lot is small and fills on good-weather weekends, and there’s no useful transit out here — most people arrive already walking, on Leif Erikson or the Wildwood. Come with daylight to spare and plan the drive, not just the run.

It’s a foot-only trail, and dirt underfoot: expect the usual west-hills mud through the wet months, and stay in the center of the tread when it’s soft rather than skirting the puddles and widening it.

No cannon, then, and no ceremony. Just a well-made little climb, quietly named for the man who helped pay for it.