5 buttes, 11 hours, 14 miles: Epic day of hiking in Eugene and Springfield

The Eugene-Springfield area has one of the nation’s best local trail systems. Geology blessed the region with buttes and ridges that rise up to 2,000 feet, and intensive community support has helped to create and maintain the trails.

Five major hiking buttes — Spencer Butte, Mt. Baldy, Mt. Pisgah, Thurston Hills and Skinner Butte — are destinations for experienced and novice hikers. What makes these five places special, and why are they so tightly woven into our local history and psyche?  

I set out to find out, by seeing if I could hike them all in a single day, July 21, and I enlisted a friend, David Meredith, who is a hiker and biologist, to help.

Here’s our journey, which was expectedly slow. For a well-conditioned runner, this could have been much faster — as they say, a walk in the park. And some even run from one park to the next. We drove, and it still took more than 11 hours.

In addition to the hiking we had lots of good conversation — and some nice surprises.

Here’s the detail of our trip, in order of the hikes:

Spencer Butte

Address: 85401 S. Willamette St., Eugene
Arrived at summit: 8:17 a.m. 
Elevation: 2,058 feet
Distance: 2 miles roundtrip

First called Champ-a-te, or Rattlesnake Mountain, by the local Kalapuya, there are differing accounts of how the butte got its current name. And now there is another Spencer connected to the butte, one honored by the University of Oregon football team. They hike the butte annually in memory of teammate Spencer Webb, who died in 2022 in an accident at Triangle Lake west of Eugene.

Milestone: In 1938, a grassroots campaign collected contributions limited to $5 or less, to let everyone “buy a piece” of the butte and protect it from development. Former mayor F.M. Wilkins, at age 90, said in The Eugene Daily News, “Eugene boys and girls will be climbing Spencer Butte fifty and one hundred years from today, to be inspired by looking over a city built out to the very foot of the Butte.”  

Gene Humphreys, a University of Oregon professor of geophysics, told us at the summit: “Oregon is one of earth’s most volcanic provinces,” he said. “The other really volcanic province is east Africa, the rift valley where man evolved.”

Mt. Baldy

Address: 32442 Dillard Road, Eugene
Arrived at summit: 10:16 a.m.  
Elevation: 1,235 feet
Distance: 2.2 miles roundtrip

After Spencer Butte we drove up Dillard Road to the Mt. Baldy south parking lot, at the intersection with Hidden Meadows Drive.

Milestone: In 2026, Baldy will be in the news a lot with the completion of the two-mile extension of the Ridgeline Trail east to Lane Community College. Philip Richardson, a landscape architect with the city of Eugene, told me there will be two trail connections, one for mountain biking and the other for hiking. “There’s been kind of a rogue biking trail that will be replaced by something better,” he said.  

Mt. Pisgah

Address: 34901 Frank Parrish Road, Eugene
Arrived at summit: 12:26 p.m.
Elevation: 1,531 feet
Distance: 3.5 miles roundtrip

On to Lane County’s largest park, Howard Buford Recreation Area, which has 26 miles of trails. I often take one of the many flat or gently sloping trails for the times when I don’t want to tackle a hike up the butte.

Milestones: In 1976, the state began to acquire the land for Buford Park, which grew to 2,363 acres with the 200-acre arboretum at the south end. In 2012, the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum changed its charter to focus on only native plants, instead of sourcing them worldwide. That was controversial and key leaders opposed the decision. 

Thurston Hills

Address: 7575 McKenzie Highway, Springfield
Arrived at summit: 4:37 p.m. 
Elevation: 1,397 feet
Distance: 5.5 miles roundtrip

We descended from Mt. Pisgah and drove on to the Thurston Hills Natural Area. Along the way I coaxed David into a stop at McDonald’s, not a normal cuisine for him. Thurston Hills has the longest summit trail (and the nicest restrooms) of the five buttes. It’s 665 acres and managed by the Willamalane Park and Recreation District. 

This was the hike of most concern when planning the trip. It’s the longest, gets steeper after the beginning, and I knew we would be tired, or at least I would be. Part of the fun at Thurston Hills is seeing so many mountain bikers, who seem to handle the steep ups and downs easily. 

Milestones: In 1853, Frederick Lutanner Gray settled the area. In 2012, Gray’s descendants begin transferring portions of their land to the city of Springfield. In 2017, the area opened to the public.

Skinner Butte 

Address: 248 Cheshire Ave., Eugene
Arrived at summit: 6:48 p.m. 
Elevation: 682 feet
Distance: 1.6 miles roundtrip

We drove to Skinner Butte, and made the short walk up to the top.

Milestones: In 1846, Eugene and Mary Skinner settled in what would become modern-day Eugene with the help of local Kalapuya people. The butte (and the town) would be renamed for him, from the original “Ya-Po-Ah,” meaning “high place.” There is a vestige of that name at Ya-Po-Ah Terrace, a retirement home that is Eugene’s highest building, on the southeast side of the Butte. In 1914, Skinner Butte officially opened as a park, Eugene’s oldest. 

Skinner Butte Park includes the popular RiverPlay playground, a replica of Skinner’s original cabin, a basalt rock-climbing area known as “the columns,” and the Shelton McMurphey Johnson house.

We ended our adventure more than 11 hours later with a view of Spencer Butte. That’s where our day had started, and we finished where modern-day Eugene began. We did hike the five buttes in one day. And why? To celebrate their unique geology and history, and in appreciation for the people who have kept them in their natural state while developing an amazing trail system.