Welcome to the Watershed: Chehalem Ridge
Free Trans+ and Queer Outdoor Gatherings in Portland
Welcome to the Watershed is a free outdoor gathering series for trans, nonbinary, and queer people in Portland, Oregon. Three Saturdays over the next year, each at a different river.
What's a watershed?
A watershed is all the land where water drains to the same place. Every drop of rain that falls inside it is heading for the same river.
Rain hits a roof in Northeast Portland, runs down the street, into a storm drain, into a creek, and eventually into the Columbia. Rain that falls twenty miles west heads for the Tualatin instead. The line between them is often just a low ridge you'd drive over without noticing.
You live inside one of these. Most people never find out which.
That's what this series is about. Three sessions, three watersheds, and by the end you'll know which water you live on top of.
The sessions
Saturday, October 17, 2026 · Blue Lake Regional Park, Fairview Columbia watershed. A natural lake fed from underground, sitting in a floodplain the river spent millennia shaping. Flat paths, covered shelter, easy first outing.
Saturday, January 23, 2027 · Graham Oaks Nature Park, Wilsonville Willamette and Tonquin watershed. Bare oaks, winter birds, and 150,000 native plants put back into what used to be a farm. Free parking, and the SMART bus goes right to the entrance.
Saturday, April 17, 2027 · Chehalem Ridge Nature Park, Gaston Tualatin watershed. Oak and madrone leafing out, views across the valley, everything loud with birds.
All sessions 11am to 2pm.
What it costs
Super free. Food included. Binoculars, walking sticks, and other gear to borrow. Plus a notebook that's yours to keep.
If getting there is the hard part let us know.
Accessibility
No half mile hike to get to the crew. Covered shelters next to parking lots. Accessible parking and restrooms at every site. You can participate fully from a picnic table, and people do.
Group activities with plenty of time to explore.
Getting there
Two of our three sites are hard to reach without a car, so we coordinate carpools from transit centers. If you drive and bring people, we cover your gas.
Who this is for
We center trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender-expansive adults in the Portland metro. All welcome. No one is turned away.