Wildwood Recreation Site

Close to Portland, one of the most fascinating walks you will ever go on. The true learning experience about the story and the life of a salmon. There is a viewing area beneath the Salmon river where you can actually see salmon spawning and growing up. There’s the soothing serenading sounds of the Salmon river all around you on this walk. During the spawning season, check out when that is for the various 7-​species of salmon, and bring your camera, binoculars, a picnic, paintbrush and muse. What is so very cool are the information boards telling the salmon story in a poetic flow with a river full of facts.

Stopped in for a family picnic on our way to Central Oregon and was pleasantly surprised at how well everything was done. The 5 $ park fee was nothing in comparison to what you got. Great picnic shelters, each one with its own BBQ and trash can and varying venues within the family picnic area. This might become our regular stop on our way down every year

«Have you been there?» asks our biology teacher friend as we’re trundling down Hwy 26 on our way toward the mountain, pointing at one of those smallish wooden signs you always see along the road. «That’s one of my favorite recreation areas!»
She’s led a lot of field trips here, and it has a bunch of trails, and an underground fish window in the stream, and random nature art mixed in with all that actual nature… and the next thing you know, we’re definitely turning the car around. Like so many recreation areas and campsites and secret river spots, once you go there, you think: how have I never known this exists?
The park is located right on the Salmon River, so if you go at the right time of year (now, for instance), you can see salmon spawning. Which, like all of nature, is kinda gross and kinda cool.
There’s a big walking bridge that takes you over the river and onto a series of boardwalks that go through wetlands where you can find newts, and if you explore enough, you can connect to the Pacific Crest Trail from here, too, and wonder at the remnants of some of the massive old-​growth trees that they just don’t grow like they used to. It’s a nature smörgåsbord!
My teacher friend says she likes to bring students here because it’s so nicely designed and well-​maintained and filled with so much variety that even the kids who think nature is scary can find it accessible and cool. It is a day-​use only facility (so no camping), and there are picnic tables and fire pit areas and benches and — for better or worse — lots of random nature art tucked in throughout the trails.
So basically Disneyland’s California Adventure. Except instead of plaster and chlorine, they used actual trees and water. I’m totally down with that.