Updated February 20
Hiking a planned community in Lake Oswego might sound about as thrilling as watching paint dry while walking on a low-impact treadmill. But the suburb's Mountain Park neighborhood is hiding an entire trail system worth exploring.
Dubbed "Nature's Neighborhood," Mountain Park is the largest planned community in Oregon and was designed in such a way that the area's natural environment would be preserved as much as possible during development, which includes miles of walking trails. It's the brainchild of landscape designer Carl Halvorson, who, in the 1960s, envisioned a suburban utopia with recreational facilities, greenways, open spaces, public art and natural areas. (He also had plans to build a European-style shopping center that never got off the ground.) The idea was to limit the need for sidewalks and take pedestrians and cyclists off the roadway.