Saturday we found another “rails to trails” path, this one in Astoria, Oregon. We’ve been waking up to perfect weather in Portland for weeks, but you can never assume good weather inland means good weather at the beach. However, a quick online weather check promised blue skies and 80 degrees, so we threw the bikes in the car along with some gear and were off.

Astoria sits on the north-western tip of Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River. Lewis and Clark arrived here in 1805, making this town the West’s oldest American settlement and a National Historic District. 

River Walk is a short trail that runs right along the water, 5 miles from end to end (10 miles round trip), and there’s a lot to see. We spent about an hour riding and more than an hour taking pictures and taking in the scenery. Huge ships on the river, vestiges of old piers and canneries, boardwalks, and the magnificent Astoria Bridge were highlights.

All in all I recommend the trip with one caveat: Part of the trail is paved and the rest is planked trestles, which run parallel to the tracks. Many of the cracks between the boards are wide enough that skinny bike tires can actually slip through them, so we found ourselves walking our bikes some of the way.

• Tags
• Astoria Oregon
• Astoria Bridge
• River Walk
• rails to trails
• bicycle trip
• Columbia River