Trail Inventory and Suitability Analysis

Client: Lewis & Clark College

Location: Portland, Oregon

Lewis & Clark College is a liberal university that describes itself as a “private institution with a public conscience.” The campus is situated in a remarkable natural setting, among 137 wooded acres in Portland’s southwest hills. Immediately north of campus is a large tract of city-owned land that’s been permanently transformed into a recreational area for hikers and mountain bikers. Both the college and the city have been looking for ways to connect the adjacent trail systems for the benefit of the university’s students and the general public.

The college engaged our team to help answer a couple of important questions. The college had no reliable inventory of the current trail systems throughout their campus. They also weren’t sure if their existing trail systems would link up with the city’s trails, or if a new trail should be constructed to make the connection.

The first task involved field inventorying and creating a comprehensive trails database. We spent two days with a high-accuracy Trimble unit, walking the college’s trail systems and recording their condition, their points of intersection, and other points of interest. The trails database, along with LiDAR point cloud data, provided the basis for finding the most efficient way to link up the campus’s trails with the city’s trail network to the north. The proposed network has been vital to the college’s planning and coordination efforts with the city.