On October 23, LAIKA's stop-motion film "Wildwood" opens in theaters nationwide, adapted from Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis's novel about a hidden forest just beyond Portland. Producer Sam Wilson told Variety that director Travis Knight has described the film as a love letter to Portland. Downtown already has a companion art trail built around it. What the marketing doesn't mention is that the parking lot for the actual trail most people associate with the name, Forest Park's Ridge Trail off NW Bridge Avenue, is closed indefinitely.
If you live near the north end of Forest Park, you already know how to get around that. This fall, a lot of people who don't live here are about to find out the hard way.
What the Film Actually Borrows From the Neighborhood
"Wildwood" was built at LAIKA's Hillsboro studio, and its story leans directly on local geography: a teenager named Prue McKeel crosses into an enchanted forest called the Impassable Wilderness that sits just outside the city. Knight has called it the biggest and most personal world LAIKA has built. The film had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 11 before its US release through Fathom Entertainment on October 23.
None of the film was shot in Forest Park itself, since it's stop-motion animation built frame by frame on soundstages. But the marketing has leaned hard into the real place. That distinction matters for anyone who lives near the park, because the coming wave of attention is about a fictional forest with the name and rough geography of the one behind your house, not a film crew that was actually there.
The Downtown Art Trail Is Already Testing the Pattern
Portland has run this play before. In 2024, Downtown Portland Clean & Safe and the Portland Metro Chamber built "Coraline's Curious Cat Trail," a public art walk tied to LAIKA's earlier film. Organizers said that project generated millions of dollars for the city's economy.
This year's version, "Wildwood: Follow the Crows," went up downtown on August 7 and runs through November 1. It's a partnership between LAIKA, OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Wild in Art, the Portland Metro Chamber, and Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, with 31 crow sculptures placed around the city center. The pitch, according to Wild in Art's director, is to get people out onto the streets to rediscover their own town.
The sculpture trail lives downtown, not in Forest Park. But it's built entirely around the idea that Prue's forest is a real place you can go find. Some share of the people who walk that trail this fall are going to look up where the actual Wildwood Trail is and decide to drive out and see it.
What's Actually Closed at the Trailhead
Here's where the timing gets awkward. Portland Parks & Recreation's trail closures page, last updated August 14, confirms that the Ridge Trail parking area on NW Bridge Avenue is closed indefinitely due to safety concerns, specifically falling rock and inadequate space for pedestrians walking between the parking area and the trailhead.
The Ridge Trail is the classic entry point into the north end of Forest Park, the section with the postcard view of the St. Johns Bridge that shows up in most trail photos and hiking guides for this part of the park. It's also the most direct route toward the Wildwood Trail itself for anyone coming from the St. Johns side of the river.
The city's own guidance for anyone still trying to reach it:
- Access the Ridge Trail by bus, bicycle, or on foot
- If you must drive, park on the east side of the St. Johns Bridge and walk across
- There is no functioning car-accessible parking lot at the trailhead itself right now, and the closure has no announced end date
That last point is the one worth sitting with. This isn't a two-week repair with a reopening date on a sign. It's an open-ended closure at exactly the moment more outside visitors than usual are likely to come looking for this specific trail.
How the Neighborhood Already Gets In
None of this is news to people who live here, because most Forest Park residents already treat car access to the north end trailheads as unreliable. Portland Monthly's own walkthrough of the park lays out the workarounds that longtime hikers default to:
- TriMet's 16 bus runs to St. Johns, putting you within walking distance of the bridge and the Ridge Trail turnoff
- The 15 and 77 buses stop near Montgomery Park, a short walk from the Lower Macleay Trail entrance
- The 20 bus on West Burnside and the Washington Park MAX station both put you within reach of the Wildwood Trail's southern end
- Walking across the St. Johns Bridge itself, completed in 1931, remains one of the more dramatic ways into the park's northern section
That last route is the one the city is now formally recommending as the alternative to driving. For residents, that's not a workaround. It's the same route people already use when the tiny gravel pullouts along Germantown Road fill up on a normal Saturday, which happens often enough that it barely registers anymore.
What Changes This Fall If You Live Here
The practical shift isn't about the film itself. It's about foot traffic patterns around a corridor that locals have quietly self-managed for years without much outside attention. Expect more pedestrians on the St. Johns Bridge sidewalk between now and early November, more cars circling for parking that no longer exists on NW Bridge Avenue, and more people asking neighbors or shop clerks in St. Johns how to actually find "the Wildwood trail."
Forest Park still runs to roughly 5,200 acres with about 70 miles of trails, and the vast majority of that acreage away from the Ridge Trail corridor won't see any change in use this fall. The pressure, if it comes, concentrates narrowly around the north end, because that's the section doing the most work in people's imaginations right now thanks to the film's marketing.
The neighborhood's existing habits, walking the bridge, catching the 16, parking a half mile out and hiking in, aren't a response to this moment. They're just the way people here have already been doing it. The rest of the city is about to catch up.
If you're weighing a move to a neighborhood where a walk to old growth forest is part of daily life rather than a special occasion, Eleete Real Estate can walk you through what Forest Park living actually looks like month to month, trail closures, transit quirks, and all. Request a complimentary market valuation to start the conversation.
