Water Tank Trail
A little utility spur most people skip — worth it in summer for the daisy meadow at the bottom.
On this trailThe Walk
The Walk
The path drops about a quarter-mile and roughly 150 feet through the trees to the tank — quick going down, a short honest climb coming back up. The tank itself is exactly what it sounds like: fenced, municipal, unglamorous. But beside it sits the one thing worth the detour — what Marcy Houle called “a nice, daisy-strewn meadow.” In late spring and summer it does deliver: a small clearing of daisies, quiet and a little unexpected at the end of a service path, the kind of turnaround that lets a short walk feel like it arrived somewhere. Come in the wet months and you’ll get mud and a fenced tank instead, so save it for when the meadow is actually in bloom — then climb back up to the road and get on with the better walk you came for.
Getting there
Out & back · returns to Leif Erikson Drive gate at the end of NW Thurman St
- Start
- Leif Erikson Drive gate at the end of NW Thurman St, Portland — there's no trailhead at the spur itself; you reach it about a quarter-mile up the road
- Orientation
- South end of the park, in Northwest Portland at the Thurman St gate; the spur peels downhill off Leif Erikson just past the first white quarter-mile post
- Parking
- A handful of free spaces at the gate plus on-street on NW Thurman below it; fills by mid-morning on sunny weekends — park down the hill and walk up, and don't block driveways
- Transit
- TriMet 15 and 77 reach Northwest Portland; continue on foot to the Thurman gate, then about a quarter-mile up Leif Erikson to the spur. Line 26 has only two weekday school trips and is not practical service to plan around
- Amenities
- Water
- Dog-bag station
- Bike parking
- Interpretive signs
- Accessibility
- Not accessible — a natural-surface dirt spur that drops about 150 ft, reached only by walking up the gravel road; no paved section, no facilities at the spur
- Dogs
- leashed
- Best
- late spring through summer, when the meadow daisies are actually out; muddy and beside the point in the wet months