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These clogs made for walking

Former banker finds off-the-beaten track walks around Portland

By Jennifer Anderson

Pamplin Media Group, Mar 12, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

L.E. BASKOW / Pamplin Media Group

Laura O. Foster takes a rest atop the shoes of the Paul Bunyan statue in Kenton. The Kenton neighborhood has a featured chapter in Foster’s book, "Portland City Walks," a guide to urban walks in and around Portland.

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Laura O. Foster will take honking horns over birdsongs any day.

Her idea of rejuvenation is pounding neighborhood sidewalks, not pristine hiking trails. She’d rather catch a whiff of a bakery, stroll through a crowded art fair and chat up a stranger than experience the solitude of nature.

Foster prefers to blaze her own walking path – right through the middle of cities.

She does so in her latest book, “Portland City Walks, Twenty Explorations in and Around Town,” published in late 2008 by Portland’s Timber Press.

“I’m very interested in exploring neighborhoods or parts of town that no one else has done before,” Foster says. “Unusual routes that give rewards like unexpected views, off-the-beaten path things, or pedestrian rights of way that aren’t really on the map and you just have to be in the know about.”

That’s exactly what Foster delivers in this authoritative 300-page guidebook, which includes 20 urban walks in Portland and surrounding communities, including Lake Oswego, Forest Grove, Oregon City, Beaverton and Vancouver, Wash.

City Walks is an expanded and updated version of her “Portland Hill Walks, Twenty Explorations in Parks and Neighborhoods,” published in 2005.

Like Hill Walks, her latest book is indispensable for its notes on parking, TriMet directions, restrooms, drinking fountains, best times to visit, accessibility and places to eat along the way – even if they involve a slight detour.

Foster, a former banker who moved to Portland from the Midwest in 1989, says she’s surprised to have cornered the market in the field, in a place so rich in neighborhood history and a populace keen on the health and environmental benefits of walking.

NEW EDITION OF BOOK PLANNED
The Metro regional government contracted with Laura Foster last June to produce a walking guide called “Walk There! 50 Treks in and around Portland and Vancouver.” All 35,000 copies of the free guide were snatched up within three months, says Pam Peck, Metro’s regional travel options manager. Now Metro is working to produce a second edition for release in April. This time, the guide will cost $9.95 and be available at Powell’s Books and other stores. Some of the books will be set aside and distributed through Kaiser Permanente’s health education classes to people who are making a life change and trying to walk more. “It’s a great practical tool,” Peck says of the walking guide. “People aren’t sure how safely and quickly they can navigate to a destination near their house. The book gives them inspiration for a pleasant route to take.”

Similar books on the market focus on hikes around Portland, or nature walks in Portland parks and wetlands. Urban walks are a different animal.

The book is more than just a guidebook with walking directions and easy-to-read maps. Foster is a former technical writer who’s practiced in the art of observation, and it shows.

“Technical writing makes you look at a process in minute detail,” she says. “I’d watch somebody do a procedure, type it up, watch it again and realize you’ve missed maybe 20 percent of the vital steps.”

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