Portland Stairs Quest 4: Mt. Tabor

After getting progressively harder over the previous 3 trips I decided to take it just a bit easier on Thursday and hit a smaller number of steps and miles so I'm not dead by the weekend. So I drove out to Mt. Tabor, the remains of an old extinct volcano in Southeast Portland, one of the few situations like that in the world. Not many major cities have volcanoes, even dead ones, in their city limits.

Mt. Tabor is a great park and I wish I lived within walking distance but alas. To avoid the heat and traffic I drove out at 7pm hoping to get all the stairs done in the twilight hours, and maybe catch a sunset. I did. It was nice. But first, STAIRS.

Parked at the lower parking lot next to the playground on the north side. Took a quick detour into the neighborhood to hit two staircases: Up 18 and up 29.

Then came the big guy. Mt. Tabor may not have many stairs, but it has two very important stairs. It has the longest set of stairs in Portland, at 282 steps from the bottom of the park to the summit. It's not all one single staircase, it has several level sections, but the way I consider it those 282 steps are all the same stairs. It's a great walk and it drops you off at the beautiful summit where you can admire the view west.

Some small staircases litter the summit area, nothing fancy. I went up 9, down 9, down 14, down another 14, down 12, and down 35 before leaving the summit. I then traveled way down to the lower reservoirs. between the upper and lower reservoir, there is the second most important staircase in the city: a single flight of stairs 97 steps tall. Most stairs are broken up by landings. Not this baby. The total staircase is 134 steps (I took them down) but 94 of them are one long very steep climb.

I then went around the bottom reservoir, past the tennis courts (12 steps up), out of the park on main street, back along the western border of the park, and took a 43 step climb back to the lower reservoir. Went around the south side, took a path up to the "forgotten" small third reservoir on the south flank of the volcano. I took a path down to a dog park at the bottom of the park, and ran 93 steps back to the road. Then took another 81 steps to the third reservoir. A few random staircases around the third reservoir gave me 14 steps up and 2 steps down.

Then I got a great sunset.

Lastly, back at the car, I took a 17 step climb at the baskeball courts for closure.

Totals!
3.65 miles for the trip
598 steps climbed
220 steps descended
818 steps total.

An easy day. Tomorrow I get back to 5 miles or more.

MAP!