Bowman Park, Albany, OR

The Bowman Park trail runs alongside the Willamette River.

Location: Park in the Bowman Park parking lot, at the end of NE Geary Street in Albany, OR.

Date run:  many times

Distance:  3.0 Miles, out and back

Pros:  Soft trail, covered with wood chips.  Trail is almost completely shaded.  The trail is patrolled on a regular basis by Albany Police in bikes.  This trail is also used as a practice course for the South Albany High School cross country team.  Close to my home, this is my 'go to' run when I don't have a lot of time.

Cons:  The mosquitoes during some points of the summer are horrendous, and have kept me away on more than one occasion.  Many homeless seem to camp out in areas off of side trails (although, I can't fathom sleeping here and dealing with the mosquitoes in the summer), or else they use the trail en route to someplace else.  I've never had any trouble while on a run, but I am aware that I'm not alone.

Wood chip covered trail alongside the Willamette River.

To find the start of the Bowman park trail, from the parking lot and looking towards the river, head right until you see a well-traveled foot path in the grass, just off of the road that serves as the entrance into the park.  This path turns into a wood-chip covered trail at about the 0.25 to the 0.50 mile mark.

Number of people encountered on run:  Sometimes, I don't see anyone while running.  At dusk, I've passed the Albany Police Department (on bike) sweeping the homeless off of the trail, or I've passed many homeless making their way back onto the trail as the sun starts to set.  In the morning, I've passed homeless coming off of the trail.  There are also many dogwalkers (several are regulars), teenagers out for a walk, and a few bikers.

Summary of run:  I love this trail, except during some parts of the summer, when I've counted about 30 new mosquito bites after a run.  The trail is covered in wood chips for nearly its entire length, and is shaded by large trees for all but 2-3 sections.  The trail starts and stops at a boat launch into the Willamette River, and has one stream that crosses under the trail about half a mile into the run.  Running with my husky, its nice to have a place where he can jump in and cool off.

Most of the dogs being walked along the trail are well-behaved and on-leash, or else their owners curb their dogs as we (my husky and I) run past.

There are a lot of homeless that use this trail, but they've never given me any problems.  Still, I sometimes (half-jokingly) remind my husband that if I were to disappear during a run, he should check my Nike+ account to see where I was last.

Bowman trail.  The trail is traced in the grey dashed line, and then the red dashed line.  Run out from the parking lot on Geary Street.  Run past the Talking Water Gardens paths, and to the loop at the end of the Bowman trail, before returning to the Geary Street Parking lot.  Map courtesy of a screen cap shot from OpenStreetMap.