Trail Running in Luscher Farm City Park

This is a brand new discovery for me! I used to drive past it once a week when I volunteered in West Linn, and finally got curious and went for a run on the extensive trail network here at Luscher Farm and Hazelia Field.

Luscher Farm is actually an active farm with a community garden, a flower garden, a CSA, and educational programs for adults and children. You can read more about it here, since I'll be focusing on the nearby running trails.

Hazelia Field is right next door, and has a huge sports complex, two dog parks, playgrounds, and a nice parking lot and bathroom. This is the best place to park and start your adventure.

Be sure to check out my other favorite trails in the Willamette Valley:

• Trail Running in Oregon's Wine Country

• Bob & Crystal Rilee Park (Newberg)

• Willamette Mission State Park (Keizer)

• Champoeg State Park (Newberg)

• Miller Woods Conservation Area (McMinnville)

• Chehalem Ridge Nature Park (Forest Grove)

• Graham Oaks Nature Park (Wilsonville)

And to get directions, take a look at my interactive map of favorite trail runs in SW Portland, here.

The majority of the trails at Luscher Farms are through beautiful wheat fields, with gentle rolling hills.

Luscher Farm at-a-glance

Unfortunately there is no official map of Hazelia Field/Luscher Farms, so you'll have to rely on apps like Strava, or community created routes on AllTrails or other websites. I've linked a few of them here, but your best bet is to just go explore! It's small enough that you won't get lost.

• About 25 minutes from Portland - Hazelia Field parking lot is here, and the Luscher Farm lot is here.

• Trail Policies

  • Dogs and bicycles are allowed! Hazelia Field even has two off-leash dog parks.

  • Parking is free!

  • There are flush toilets with sinks, and a drinking fountain at the Hazelia Field parking lot

• Official Hazelia Field website from City of Lake Oswego

• Official Luscher Farm website from city of Lake Oswego

• The trail network is made of several distinct fields - you can make a loop in one smaller section, or explore the entire area:

  • Hazelia Field is a park with sports fields,

  • Luscher Farm is south of Hazelia Field,

  • The Firlane Open Space and Brock Property are to the east.

  • The paved Rosemont Trail is south of the fields.

• You can create almost any kind of loop here! The Rosemont Trail is paved and mostly flat, or you could make hills out of the dirt/grass trails in the fields. I usually do five mile loops with challenging hills.

• All Trails link to Rosemont Trail

  
  

• Oregon Hikers link to a trail connecting Luscher Farms and nearby Cooks Butte

This is the best I can do for a map - the Strava heat map shows all the trails in the area. It looks confusing, but the fields are wide open, so you won't get lost when you can see where you're headed.

Exploring Hazelia Field and Luscher Farm

Google Maps took me to a private driveway when I set it to Luscher Farms, so I’d recommend setting it to Hazelia Field. There are some spots at the farm, but Hazelia Field has a huge parking lot with nice bathrooms and water fountains.

Luscher Farm is an active community farm that is open to the public from dawn to dusk. There are community garden plots, a flower garden, a chicken coop, a historic farm house, and a barn where they teach classes for adults and kids. Trails start to the east of the farm, in the fields. The majority of these trails are just mowed paths through tall grass.

The western half of the route is through a forested section, but the majority of the park is oak savannah.

If you follow the mowed paths, you'll figure out a route pretty easily. Most of the paths are wide open, but there are some that go through bushes and trees. If you go all the way to the Brock Property (which I highly recommend), there is even a small creek crossing!

The Rosemont Trail goes along Rosemont and Stafford Roads. It is paved, with very gentle inclines, and can be used in a much larger loop around the area. Cooks Butte and Stevens Meadow are both walking distance away.

The beautifully paved Rosemont Trail

Let's make a day of it!

Luscher Farm is about 25 minutes from Portland, in Lake Oswego. It's very close to the suburbs, but feels more remote and rural. I discovered it when I was making a weekly commute from Sherwood to West Linn. The entire area is stunning, but most of it is privately owned. Luscher Farm and Hazelia Field are the only places I found to actually explore this area.

Here are some of my favorite local stops by Luscher Farms:

• Happy Sparrow Cafe (7 minutes away): The hours are horrific here (only open 7:30-12:30 on most days), but if you happen to be around when they're open, they have amazing kolaches. My mom was born in Slovakia and I grew up with homemade kolaches from my grandmother. They are becoming trendier in the US, even though most Americans think of them as a Texan food, not a Czech/Slovak food. Happy Sparrow is one of the few places in the Portland area that sells kolaches and they're some of the best I've ever had.

• Paddleboarding on Lake Oswego (6 minutes away): Lake Oswego recently started to allow nonresidents to paddleboard and kayak on the lake. I went for the first time last summer and was amazed at how big the lake actually is. Park near Lower Millenium Plaza Park and carry the kayaks/boards down to the water. You can either stay in the bay or paddle under the bridge to the larger lake.

Another beautiful field at Luscher Farm. If you dream of running through grassy fields, but realized quickly that it's actually pretty scratchy and uncomfy, this is a perfect park for you. You can pretend you're on the open prairie, while staying on a comfortably mowed path the entire time.

Thanks for reading!

Writing about my favorite trail running routes has been my one of my favorite Kati Explores projects thus far. I keep thinking I'm done, then I discover a new place. Luscher Farms was a recent discovery and it's going to be hard to beat.

I am also thoroughly enjoying finding my favorite poorly rated Google Review for each location. Carolyn did not enjoy her visit to Luscher Farms, because:

"Cold day. The clematis aren't blooming yet, and the bluebirds aren't nesting yet"

I guess we should tell the birds and the flowers to hurry up and come out mid-winter next time.

It's worth noting that Carolyn also visited a beachfront hotel, and gave it a poor rating because the ocean left sea foam on the beach when the tide was out.