Cleator Trail

Some trails are named for a feature; this one is named for a founder. The Cleator Trail is about a quarter mile of dirt that climbs, steadily and without much apology, from Leif Erikson Drive near its 5½-mile post up over Maple Canyon to the Wildwood Trail — and then it simply stops. It’s short, it’s steep, and its whole practical job is to hand you between the park’s two great through-routes. Take it as a hard little shortcut; don’t build a morning around it.

What earns it a second look is the sign. The trail honors Fred W. Cleator (1884–1957), the U.S. Forest Service forester who in 1928 laid out the route that became the Pacific Crest Trail — and who was one of the people who imagined Forest Park into being in the first place. Not a bad résumé for a man most Portlanders have never heard of. He also planted the American chestnut that still stands down along Leif Erikson, but that tree has its own story on the Chestnut Trail; here, the thing to hold onto is that this steep quarter mile carries the name of someone who helped give the whole forest — and a good chunk of the West — its shape.

The gain is only about 200 feet, but packed into so short a run it lands as a genuine grind, which is exactly why runners come to it: a fast, honest rung to work into a Leif-and-Wildwood circuit. Go in knowing where it ends. The trail once continued above the Wildwood, but that upper stretch now crosses onto private land at the head of Doane Creek, so it dead-ends at the junction. There’s no way through the top — only up, and then a choice of directions along the Wildwood.