Cumberland Trail
The smooth, gentle way up Pittock Hill — big firs and a bench that concedes the trees win.
On this trailThe Walk
The Walk
From the Tunnel Trail junction, the last quarter-mile up to the Wildwood is Cumberland’s real body: a broad, even path climbing at a grade you barely notice, through second-growth firs and bigleaf maple. It’s short, it’s shaded, and it never asks much. Near the bottom, just off the tread, stands the grove of large Douglas-firs worth slowing down for — the kind of trees that make you recalibrate how big a “big tree” is in this park.
Local Lens Set among those firs is a memorial bench for Pietro Belluschi, the Portland architect who shaped mid-century American modernism, inscribed with his own line: “We never could design a building as beautiful as the trees.” It’s a good thing to read while sitting under the very trees it concedes to. Belluschi spent a career making beautiful buildings and then, in a public bench, admitted the forest had him beat. Take the seat. Agree with him.
At the top, Cumberland ends at the Wildwood Trail on Pittock Hill. The junction lands about 0.12 mile past the standalone Macleay Trail junction — worth knowing, because this corner of the park stacks three separate “Macleay” names within a short walk and it’s easy to get turned around. Turn uphill on the Wildwood to keep climbing toward Pittock Mansion; turn the other way to drop back toward the Balch Creek canyon and Lower Macleay.
Listen for the big-tree quiet This slope sits right against the Bird Alliance of Oregon sanctuary — the free, 172-acre wildlife preserve (the old Portland Audubon) that shares this ridge and holds one of the tallest documented Douglas-firs in the city on its own land. You’re on the edge of some of the best bird habitat in the west hills. In the Douglas-fir grove, stop and let the neighborhood noise fall away; the taller the canopy, the more the sound comes from above you rather than around you.
Before you go
The catch here isn’t the trail, it’s getting to it. There’s no lot — just a pullout on NW Cornell Rd at the Tunnel Trailhead and on-street parking at the Hillside dead-ends, all of it neighborhood-sensitive. Read the signs, park well clear of driveways, and if it’s a sunny weekend, expect the easier option to be walking up from Lower Macleay instead.
The wide, well-drained tread is one of Cumberland’s genuine gifts: it shrugs off the wet season better than most of the park’s dirt, so this is a reasonable rainy-day link when the ravine trails are running like plumbing. Take the bench on your way up. The firs will still be winning the argument on your way down.
Getting there
One way · from Tunnel Trailhead
- Start
- Tunnel Trailhead, a roadside pullout on NW Cornell Rd in the Hillside neighborhood (hike up the Tunnel Trail to reach the Cumberland)
- Orientation
- South end of the park, up in the Hillside neighborhood above NW Cornell Rd — the Pittock Mansion / Audubon side of the Macleay cluster, not the Lower Macleay canyon most first-timers know
- Parking
- No real lot. The Tunnel Trailhead is a pullout on NW Cornell Rd with room for a car or two; the NW Cumberland Rd and NW Macleay Blvd dead-ends are on-street neighborhood parking only. Heed the No Parking signs and don't block driveways
- Other access
- From the NW Cumberland Rd / NW Macleay Blvd dead-end streets in the Hillside neighborhood (the trail takes its name from Cumberland Rd)
- As a link on the longer Pittock Mansion loop from Lower Macleay Park (NW Upshur)
- Ends at
- Tops out at the Wildwood Trail on Pittock Hill — the junction sits about 0.12 mi past the standalone Macleay Trail junction. From there, turn up the Wildwood to climb toward Pittock Mansion, or return the way you came down the Tunnel Trail
- Transit
- No convenient direct bus. TriMet 18 winds through the Hillside neighborhood; walk down to the Cumberland/Macleay Blvd dead-ends. Most people reach this cluster on foot from Lower Macleay (bus 15 & 77)
- Accessibility
- Not an accessible route — natural-surface dirt, reached only by the dirt Tunnel Trail, with no paved segment and no facilities at the neighborhood accesses
- Dogs
- leashed
- Best
- year-round; the broad, well-drained tread handles the wet season better than most of the park's dirt trails
Additional resources
- Bird Alliance of Oregon — Wildlife SanctuaryFree 172-acre sanctuary next door with 4+ miles of trails — the naturalist anchor of this corner of the park.