WALKING DIRECTIONS:
you can walk here from many different directions. i drew the trails in on the map using dashed lines. you can walk there easily from the picnic area by pierce mill dam (where beach drive intersects with park/tilden) via the ridge trail (parallels ridge road).
i will be walking from my house (14th and buchanan nw) via carter barron if people want to join me. it's about 25 minutes from my house, 15 minutes from carter barron. let me know if you're interested and i will let you know what time to meet.
or, here are directions to walk from carter barron: go to the southwest-most corner of the parking lot, relatively near the entrance to the ampitheatre. there are a couple of picnic tables. from there just head into the woods going downhill (west). there's no trail but just go down and you'll be fine. at the bottom of the hill you will hit a narrow trail, and then just below that is beach drive, and then the creek. there will be a bridge going across the creek. cross the bridge. turn left, walk about 100 yards on the wide path, and then turn right on the trail that heads up into a bit of a ravine. when you get to a large concrete bridge, take the lower fork to pass under the bridge. keep going til you see us in a clearing on your left.
BIKING:
see driving directions. coming from the south, ridge road is a real nice climb:)
DRIVING:
if you're coming from the south, you will want to come up rock creek parkway past the zoo. then it turns into beach drive as it crosses klingle/porter. keep going on beach. piney branch will fork off to the right; stay on beach. pass through the intersection with park/tilden. blagden will fork off to the right; stay on beach. shortly thereafter, you will have to make a left turn because beach drive is closed from that point north on weekends. so turn left onto broad branch, and then make an immediate right onto ridge road (following signs to the nature center). continue on ridge road until you see the turn-off to the right for the nature center. you can either park there in the nature center lot, or keep going a bit farther on ridge road until it intersects with glover rd - at that intersection there is a parking lot to your left.
if you're coming from the north, you want to get to the intersection of oregon ave and military road. to do that, you could come west on military from 16th street, east on military from nebraska or connecticut, or south on beach/oregon from the east-west highway. as it crosses military road, oregon becomes glover road. glover will then shortly intersect with ridge road. either park there in the lot to your right at the intersection, or take the fork onto ridge and continue just a bit farther to the nature center parking lot.