By Jacob Graves
Sports Editor

Part of the Douglas Loop trail closed off and surrounded by cones. Photo by Jacob Graves

Big changes are underway for outdoor enthusiasts and students alike at Clackamas Community College, as the school is working on major upgrades for the 2.1-mile-long Douglas Loop Trail.

The Douglas Loop Trail is a popular semi-paved trail that loops around the college. It’s accessible to anyone and provides a scenic route for activities such as walking, biking or running around campus.

CCC has hired land surveyors thanks to the bond that passed in November of 2024. They have been working around the loop to map out the trail in order to reach a collective understanding on how to improve the path altogether.

The surveyors on campus have been working to enhance walking conditions for citizens and attendees of the college.

“With the gravel and whatnot in this area, there’s not many places for people to walk around,” said John Brady, land surveyor for Compass Land Services. “What we’re doing for the college is making a map for them so they can figure out how we can fix things a little better and make an ADA compliant to go along with it.”

Dale Kuykendall, a project manager from Wenaha Group who was hired by the college to manage bond projects, said that the passing of the bond essentially put the plan to rebuild the trail in action.

Dale Kuykendall, circa 2016. Photo provided by Dale Kuykendall

“The voters passed the bond last fall, and part of that bond was to basically complete the loop trail,” Kuykendall said. “Right now, it’s a lot of gaps in it; the trail needs to be filled in so people aren’t walking on the roads. It’s a really important project for safety, and currently we are in the design process.”

Kuykendall said that the land surveyors aim to keep trail conditions safe. They’re using geotechnical drills—equipment that collects soil and rock samples for ground investigation—to examine the ground underneath for further observation. These drills help to identify samples and determine the ground’s properties and characteristics.

“The surveyors are out there around the whole campus to get the existing conditions identified,” Kuykendall said. “There will be a geotechnical driller on site, and there’s been a similar rig on the athletic field project already. But he’s going to also do some drilling around the path at various points that helps the surveyors figure out what the ground is like underneath the path, referring back to us about various pieces and getting a lot of good information that way.”

Kuykendall also said that the college is planning on implementing community input in order to dictate the level of detail the trail needs for the project.

“I think there was a discussion of trying to get some student involvement,” Kuykendall said. “The community uses that trail an awful lot, seeing the people walk their dogs and pushing baby carriages and all that.”

Kuykendall said that the board runs ideas through a group of stakeholders in order to perfect drawings provided by engineers on the project.

“That’s called a stakeholder meeting, and once that happens, then the architect and engineer can go back and refine the drawings to check and see if the designer heard the group’s input, and then the engineer just keeps going.” he said.

Map of proposed improvements to the Douglas Loop trail. Photo provided by Dale Kuykendall

Kuykendall expects the full project to be finished by the fall term of 2025.

“Our current target has the bidding documents being done around mid to late August, and we hope to go out to bid then and hopefully get some more work started before it gets too wet out in the fall.” said Kuykendall.