Walnut Trail
A fifth-mile grass seam between better trails — with a flare of sugar-maple orange in fall.
On this trailThe Walk
The Walk
Off the Maple–Overlook junction the path crosses a grassy opening — sunnier and more exposed than most of the arboretum’s shaded trails — then ducks into a short band of trees before it meets the Maple Trail again on the far side. Midway you step across the Hawthorn Trail. That’s the walk.
Near that Hawthorn crossing, though, the maples begin to gather, and in autumn the sugar maples just below the trail flare bright orange — a preview of the collection that properly belongs to the neighboring Maple Trail, which shows off its labeled specimens far better than this little link ever could. Walk the Walnut for the shortcut and the color on the way through; walk the Maple Trail if you came to read the labels.
Getting there
One way · from No trailhead of its own
- Start
- No trailhead of its own — you reach it on foot inside Hoyt Arboretum, at the junction where the Maple and Overlook trails meet on the south slope, a short walk in from the Visitor Center
- Orientation
- Inside Hoyt Arboretum in Washington Park, on the south-facing slope below the Visitor Center at 4000 SW Fairview Blvd; walk in a few minutes on the Maple or Overlook trail
- Parking
- No lot at the trail — park at the Hoyt Arboretum Visitor Center (4000 SW Fairview Blvd) and walk in; parking is paid, $2.40/hour or $9.60/day from 9:30am to 8pm, and the grounds are open 5am–9:30pm
- Ends at
- The far end rejoins the Maple Trail after crossing the Hawthorn Trail midway — you don't retrace it; continue on the Maple or Overlook trail to close a loop back toward the Visitor Center
- Transit
- MAX Blue & Red lines to Washington Park station, then the free Washington Park Shuttle (it stops at the Visitor Center) or about a half-mile walk; TriMet bus 63 stops on SW Fairview Blvd by the arboretum
- Amenities
- Interpretive signs
- Accessibility
- Not accessible — a natural-surface path across grass and packed dirt, foot-only, reached only along unpaved arboretum trails
- Dogs
- leashed
- Best
- fall, for the sugar-maple color near the Hawthorn crossing; quick and pleasant enough year-round otherwise