Ice Age Tonquin Trail

The City, Metro, and local governments are working in partnership with other agencies to develop a 12-mile regional non-motorized trail that would allow public access to the unique environmental landscape of the Tonquin Geological Area, approximately 17 square miles of land in Washington and Clackamas counties. This area has a unique landscape with extensive evidence of the Bretz Floods (or Missoula Floods) that scoured the Columbia River Gorge and extended into the Willamette Valley multiple times between approximately 13,000 and 15,000 years ago. Receding floodwaters from these events left behind unique geologic formations such as kolk ponds and channels, basalt hummocks and knolls, which are still present throughout the area today.

The goal of this project is to protect these unique geologic features that provide valuable wildlife habitat and to build a regional trail. The trail would link the cities of Wilsonville, Sherwood and Tualatin and will also serve to connect the Willamette and Tualatin Rivers.