Next up we're visiting Portland's Copper Mountain Property, another really obscure city park that you probably haven't heard of. The name alone inspires thoughts of rugged wilderness adventures, doesn't it? It caught my eye on PortlandMaps or maybe MetroMap and figured I should check it out. So I packed up the Adventuremobile X-9000 with the essentials (dogsled, salt pork, hardtack, flamethrower, rocket boots, etc.) and set off to see what destiny had in store...
Ok, who am I kidding? The name sure sounds exciting, but it turns out that's just the name of the investment firm that owns the adjacent property to the east. There is no mountain to see here; it's just two skinny (and completely flat) lots just off Airport Way in industrial NE Portland, and I only burned any time on visiting because I was already in the area making a necessary Costco run.
There is also no copper here; if there had been, it would have been stolen as scrap metal years ago by the area's vast homeless population. In theory this narrow strip is home to a trail that connects this stretch of Airport Way to the Columbia Slough Trail, and that might have made it a potentially scenic and interesting place in the not-so-distant past. But not right now, and probably not in the immediate future, and I have literally no idea what to do about it, and I also don't want to devote a whole blog post to the subject, especially since I don't have any actual policy ideas to kick around.
For what it's worth, there's another similar bit of city land maybe 1/4 mile to the east, also connecting the slough to airport way, but without a trail, or (as far as I can tell) a name, and it isn't labeled as greenspace in PortlandMaps, but I think it's the same basic idea other than those details. I have no idea why the two places are treated differently, but I have a hunch that the reasons are not very interesting.
The normies at Google have no additional info about this place, and will try to steer you to Metro's Cooper Mountain Nature Park instead, because there's no possible way you could really want to come here (which I guess is fair this time around); or if you can persuade Google you really did mean "Copper" and not "Cooper" it'll push you toward a different Copper Mountain with vastly more mainstream appeal, a ski resort town in Colorado. Which, again, is fair this time around. Come to think of it, every other place on Earth that has a vaguely similar name seems to be better and more appealing, and this isn't the first time that's happened. And now I remember why I sort of lost interest in doing "obscure city park you probably haven't heard of" posts like this: There may still be a few hidden gems out there, but by and large the others are obscure for good reason and probably ought to stay that way.
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