Noble Woods Park — Attraction in Hillsboro

I absolutely adore this park. This is where I come to get away from the city because even though it's in the middle of the city it's so shrouded by trees and bushes and plants that you wouldn't know it. You also get a great deal of peace and quiet here. My little one loves all of the bridges with the river flowing under and this park is frequented by our very own local rock painting Rock hiding group so there are always Little treasures for the kids to hunt for and find. There is a large variety of plant species here and so it's a great place to go to learn about plant identification or tree identification. I've also seen various wildlife here including owls, eagles, and lots of furry little squirrels and chipmunks. There are several paths that you can take which I love because you can mix it up and make things a little different every time. The options of the path very from paved to gravel to bark so keep that in mind if you are bringing a stroller or something. Not a great place for biking because bikes are not allowed on the paths. The paths are too narrow to accommodate both people and bicyclists and there are a lot of sharp corners and where people have almost been run over by bicyclists who couldn't see them. There's a great covered area with benches and tables and outlets and there are also several...

This park has a beautifully shaded and wooded, if very short, walking path. There are a couple of dead ends. The main path is paved, which is nice for those with mobility issues. The E Woodland Trail deadends into a neighborhood park with a covered picnic area and bbq. This is mostly open grass and some trees on the outskirts. I really wanted to like this park better. The facts are it's small, sits off of a main, high-traffic throughway and due to this you do not escape the sounds of the city here. There are zooming cars, honking horns, airplaines, barking dogs...all that goes with city life. Likely due to all the disruptive noise, there were no birds to be heard. I prefer large, wooded areas with paths where you forget you're near a city. The main path is just shy of 1.5 miles, round trip, if you stay off the wood chip off shoots and gravel paths which all dead end it appears. The entrance is around a curve in the road, so it sneaks up on you if you've never been here before. My search for a large, densely wooded, wildlife filled, quiet park near the city continues in Washington County. I may never find what I'm looking for but Tualatin Hills Nature Park may be the closest...

It's been years since I was last here. It's still a really nice park for hiking or jogging. I came to do some Geocaching. And this is where or why I'm only giving this park 4 stars. As a person who searches for caches alone 95% of the time, I do try to be safe. The park has nice walking trails, but I was surprised at how much trash was lying about. Some from what I thought was dog owners picking up after their dogs, but than leaving the bags lying by the trails... I mean, who does that? But than I also started seeing signs of homeless people in some of the "off shoot" trails. This is where trails are being made that are not supposed to be there. Since everyone of the caches placed in this park are a good 200 feet off a main trail, I decided it was not worth going back into areas where no one could see me. I'm not sure how safe this...