Tolinda Trail
A quiet north-end ridge trail named for Camp Tolinda — a girls' camp the forest reclaimed.
On this trailThe Walk
The Walk
From Germantown Road the trail steps onto the ridge above Springville Canyon and heads down, steadily and without much ceremony, through second-growth Douglas-fir, cedar, hemlock, and alder to Leif Erikson Drive. There’s no view to wait on and no marker of the old camp to find — which is rather the point. A shelter stood here within living memory; now there’s duff, sword fern, and moss doing what they do to anything that stops moving for fifty years.
Forest Skill Read the absence. This is one of the better places in the park to see how fast a Northwest forest erases us — no plaque, no foundation, no clearing, just second growth closed over a spot that was once mowed, roofed, and full of kids. The park is full of these quiet reclamations; Tolinda is one where you actually know what used to be there, which makes the not-finding-it worth doing.
Runner’s note A legitimate little grunt in either direction — steep enough for its length that your legs will file it under “hill.” Run it as the climbing leg of a Tolinda–Ridge loop when you want a lap through the least-trafficked trails up here without touching Germantown Road pavement for more than the short connecting stretch. Save it for dry footing; wet, this ridge is a slide, not a stride.
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 pullout holds a car or two, and no bus runs up the road — most people arrive already on foot. Come with daylight to spare.
Then respect the mud. This is a steep dirt ridge, and the park’s own guidance is that Tolinda can be too slippery to be advisable in winter. In the wet months, either save it for a dry spell or take the descent slowly and stay in the center of the tread rather than skating the edges — skirting the slick spots just widens the trail and loosens the slope it’s cut into.
A camp stood here for a generation, and the forest has already swallowed nearly every trace. Walk down the ridge and let that sit for a second: not everything the park protects is scenery. Some of it is what it’s allowed to forget.
Getting there
One way · from The Tolinda trailhead on NW Germantown Rd
- Start
- The Tolinda trailhead on NW Germantown Rd, about 0.3 mi up from Bridge Avenue — a small pullout beside a fire hydrant and a park gate (don't block the gate; it's used by official vehicles)
- Orientation
- North end of the park, up NW Germantown Rd near the Bridge Avenue / St. Johns Bridge corner — foot access only, no bus up the road itself
- Parking
- A small roadside pullout at the trailhead by the hydrant and gate — room for a car or two, no more, and don't block the gate. Leave nothing valuable in the car: break-ins are a known problem in this corner
- Other access
- From the bottom, off Leif Erikson Drive above Springville Canyon, climbing up to Germantown Rd
- Ends at
- Bottoms out on Leif Erikson Drive above Springville Canyon. Most walkers make a loop of it with the neighboring Ridge Trail and a short stretch of Germantown Road rather than climbing back up the slick descent
- Transit
- TriMet bus 16 reaches Bridge Avenue (Springville & Germantown stop); from there it's an uphill road walk of about a third of a mile up NW Germantown Rd to the trailhead — no bus runs up Germantown itself
- Accessibility
- Not an accessible route — a steep, narrow natural-surface descent on foot only, with no paved segment and no facilities at the trail
- Dogs
- leashed
- Best
- drier months — it's steep and slick when wet, and the park's own caution is that it may not be advisable in winter; daylight only