There are hundreds of hiking trails on the Oregon Coast and in the Columbia River Gorge; lately they've been so popular that it's best that you get an early start, since parking lots quickly fill to capacity. Such interest in outdoor adventures would have been scoffed at by many pioneering Inner Southeast residents in the late 1890s and early 1900s — simply because walking was an everyday occurrence. It was how you got around, and was not done for fun!

Automobiles were scarce back then, and you had to use your own two feet — to get to work, to visit the grocery store, go to the pharmacy, and even hike to school. Supplies were hauled by horse and cart or wagon, and most roads were nothing more than packed earth, so a trip on a wagon was necessarily slow and bumpy. People who lived in Inner Southeast, but worked upriver in Portland, early in the Twentieth Century could take the Sellwood Ferry across the Willamette — but doing so still entailed a brisk walk down to the ferry landing, and away from the landing on the other side.