Seattle vs Portland: Which city is better for outdoor recreation?

lol not even close

Portland is the poor man's Seattle

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This isn't even close. Seattle by far. Bigger and better mountains and a lot more wilderness. When big expeditions were training for big climbs in Nepal did they go to Mt. Hood? Nope, they came to Mt. Rainier outside of Seattle.

Not even close, Seattle is better in every way

Team Portland crushes Team Seattle at the Portland Track Festival every year. What other outdoor recreation matters on LRC.?! Portland is the answer.

Boulder bro.

Vancouver

Can't beat Seattle access to Issaquah Alps.

Stanley Park > any park in Seattle or Portland

Vancouver in process of cutting down 160,000 trees in stanley park killed by the western hemlock looper moth. Even the hermits camping in the park are moving out. Don't think it will be the same for decades.

I think Seattle has more. More of everything. Certainly a lot more in terms of waterways and also more variety in terms of mountains.

That said, Portland sort of wins on proximity. Portland is so close to its best places. You can literally go mountain biking and trail running in the city. People do the Wildwood Trail (30 miles one way) without even leaving Portland! Sandy Ridge mountain biking is also less than an hour from town.

Heck, Mt. Hood is just an hour from your driveway. You can be on a glacier so fast... Hood lacks the variety of Washington's peaks but the fact is, it is right there!

Bottom line, you are in the Columbia Gorge, on Mt. Hood, in Forest Park, or on the Oregon Coast in no time. Proximity means a lot...

If you lived in Seattle, the "commute" to nature is longer (though the options in that area are amazing).

The Timberline Trail is pretty amazing too:

Both cities are good. Seattle is probably a little better. Both are probably in the top 10 of big US cities to train in though.

Have you seen some of the old balding scrubs that Team Seattle has used in past races?

I'd agree with this. Forest Park in PDX is really nice and in the city, so you have a huge outdoor Spot there.

Parts of the olympic peninsula are about the same distance from each city. It's only about a half hour longer to Paradise in Mt Rainier from Portland than it is from Seattle

Portland is closer to the coast and Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. Also the gorge is amazing near Portland. Obviously you have Mt Hood and the other Oregon volcanoes- closer access to crater lake and Bend.

Seattle is a lot closer to North Cascades and some of the really nice areas of the Columbia like Wenatchee. Issaquah alps are pretty great and I love Redmond Watershed. Seattle has a lot more access to gravel rail trails (and rail trails in general I think). Snoqualmie valley trail connecting to Palouse to cascades is great.

I'd give the nod to Seattle because the I-90 corridor makes everything easy, although I-84 through the gorge is great too!

I do think Seattle is a more pretty city with the lakes in it, but that's my opinion.

I think on the internet Seattle looks better.

But the cost of living, CROWDS, and traffic I chose Portland every time. So much easier to actually live everyday in then get into nature.

The nicest part is living in portland is we access Seattle's stuff all the time. It is only a ~3 hour drive to the majority of big spots.

I have lived in both places as well.

I agree with most of your post but I had to laugh when you said "the nicest part of living in Portland is that we can go to Seattle." That would seem to point to Seattle as being the better city...

p.s. Portland is still very driveable. Seattle can be a nightmare if you are on the wrong end of town. People living in West Seattle can't just pop over to Cougar Mt. or The Burke Gilman Trail. Seattle is more like four cities near each other but separated by water.

I think the water everywhere is what makes Seattle so very beautiful and varied. Besides the trail running about 45 mins away in Cougar Mtn/Issaquah, there are parks within the city that always have a view of the Sound at some point and within 3 miles, you can run on gravel, dirt, sand, be enveloped by tree shade to the point of darkness or go down to the beach. Once I didn't go to Carkeek for a couple of months and when I did, some beavers had built up a whole new swamp area.

I've run in Forest Park a few times, def not the whole 30 miles, but was kind of disappointed. Saw the troll house, the hill, the mansion, the city view, even took an edible on the trails, but it seemed kind of one-note. The food in Portland is better though—cheaper and more reliably good.

Unless you're really stupid, think very carefully if you want to recreate outdoors in rainy weather most of the year.

June through September or October are the only months the PNW even has dry ground. This means a sunny day in March is still a sunny day in the mud. Stay on the pavement.

If pavement is the "outdoors" to you, well never mind anyhow

That is interesting... I run in the rain about once a week and don't really mind. This is the case for Eugene, Corvallis, Portland, and Seattle. All of those places have good local trail running and if you have the right shoes, running in the rain should not be an issue. I ran a couple thousand miles in Hoka Speedgoats and now I am in the Nike Zegama or Ultratrail. All of those shoes were perfect for rainy, tree-line dirt trails.

If you think rain is bad, don't most other regions have humidity and heat? Our Summers are perfect to the point where the wife and I hate to travel to much in Summer because we miss out on the PNW perfection.