North Eco is a short par 3 course that plays in the middle of nowhere in Canby, Oregon. This course has all the essentials it could ever need which is rubber tee pads and Discatcher baskets. North Eco plays next to Willamette Valley Country Club in the Canby Parks and Recreation facilities. This course plays on the north end of Eco City park although I don't this this is much of a park as it is more of a hiking ground. This has beautiful scenery but the course is another story.

This course has some fun technical holes but is way to densely wooded. I have no idea why they would put a course here because there is a mile walk down a trail to get to this course.

Course has good navigation through this what seems to be a rain forest. Blackberry bushes are heavily stacked on this course and it can be very challenging to get your disc out of one them. There are a few good ace opportunities which is nice.

No elevation change at all.
This course has a lot of variety except when the Willamette River comes into play on some of the holes. I played this course in the Winter and the water was flowwwing.

Now navigation to this course is extremely tricky. I don't know why they decided to put a course here because you can not see it from the parking lot and it is a mile walk down a path to the first tee.
Some holes on this course need extreme clearing as I found my self making my way though thorn bushes.

There is a sewage plant next to this course which is not ideal but it makes since since this course is in the middle of nowhere. I don't think they do hardly any clearing on this course which is not great because soon this course might be a R.I.P course because of overgrowth.

You never no if your disc could skip into a bush so make sure to keep your eye on it because it is very likely that you could loose one of your discs here. Walking a mile to maintain this course is challenging for maintenance people. From the 1 picture on this course back in 2012 most of hole #1 is densely overpopulated in overgrowth.

If you look at this course on Google Maps and you map to 1314 NE Territorial Rd it will show this massive tree overview. I would reccomend following the directions to get to this course on the front page of North Eco.

This course is very secluded which makes it kind of scketchy but there are a few fun holes here as well. I would recommend this as a road stop course and definitely not as a course to travel here for.

By a good margin, the best thing I would highlight about this course, and want to applaud the course designers for, is the nice tee pads, baskets and navigation signage. I would say that most Oregon forest courses, at this relative level of quality/age, don't have the consistent signage that I found out at North Eco. The tee pads are grippy rubber, and while they aren't particularly long, they work well for the mostly shorter holes on the course.

There were a few fun hole designs, in particular, the first three holes were quite a lot of fun, as well as the last two holes on the course. I really liked the distance and shot shapes on these tightly wooded holes, providing birdie opportunities for a well-planned and executed tunnel shot, while punishing mistakes with some thick, but not overly dense rough (not counting ground cover). Hole 1 in particular I would highlight as one of my new favorite local wooded holes. It's a perfect width tunnel shot, to a tight, but not overly punitive green.

Generally nice scenery throughout. There were a good number of dog walkers out and about when I played, so it's good the park is getting some use.

It's been mentioned in most of these reviews, but the walk from the parking lot to the first tee is very long. The directions here on dgcoursereview list it at about 1/3 a mile, the sign at the parking lot says .4 miles, I measured it on my phone's GPS and got 1/2 half mile, and I think that's likely accurate. It's all concrete too, with views of a large fence bordering a country club and a sewage plant, it's not exactly an enjoyable trek.

I really didn't want to mark down the course too much for the thick rough, as I expected it going in. And, generally, I do think that reviewers often overly punish NW wooded courses for the undergrowth. I don't think we should discourage designers from working with true forest properties, nor do I think that it's necessarily a bad thing to design longer wooded holes that require the use of a spotter. All of this is to preface the fact that unfortunately, the undergrowth at North Eco is bad enough that, playing solo, about half of the holes are essentially unplayable right now. I had to skip holes 4, 5, 10, 11, and 12 just because a perfect drive down the middle could still end up buried in dense undergrowth. Sadly, outside of regular maintenance, the only other thing that could help this issue would be a regular stream of players tamping down the brush, which, due to the plethora of better courses in the area, is not going to happen any time soon. At the minimum, having a spotter on most of the forest holes can help, especially as most of the holes are short enough that placing one spotter halfway to the hole should cover enough eyesight.

The three field holes, while a nice change of pace from the forest holes, are almost featureless, and are all essentially the same distance. I was also unable to find the tee pad for hole 9, and had a hard time finding the pad for hole 8.

This is a small con, but, for a short course, North Eco has pretty long walkouts between holes, which don't couple well with the mile of walking required just to play the course in the first place.

While I appreciate novel hole designs, hole 6 is a bit of an eyesore. No tee pad, and the hole throws up and over a steep ~20 foot high dirt wall to a hidden and protected pin.

North Eco is a bit of a tough course to rate for me. I have a lot of respect for the moxie of the course designers to carve a course out of some fairly unforgiving terrain. I think that as a solo experience, given that even as an experienced, ~930 rated player I only felt comfortable throwing 7 of the holes, I would say that North Eco was a 1-disc sort of experience. Playing this course with a group of friends might be more like a 2-disc experience, though if I was playing with a group, I would likely take my friends out to one of the better courses in the area. I would strongly recommend avoiding this course, unless you are a true course bagger, unless you bring someone to share in spotting duties throughout the course.

Variety of open and technical shots
Nice signage for fairways, and between baskets and the next tee.
Very natural park, playing along the Willamette River in Canby.

6/12 holes are overgrown with bushes, tree limbs and tall grass. Bring spotters, or be prepared to spend 1-2 hours total searching for lost discs.
Tee pads are rubber covered lumber, not concrete.

There's room to grow this course, and if it was maintained (mowed, pruned, etc.) it would be incredible. That being said, I probably won't play this course on my own.

It's a shame that the fairly long walk in and out (1/3 mile) is going to partially eliminate a part of this course's target audience. That is, the families, the seniors and other newbies.

The Discatcher baskets with the bright yellow rim are a nice touch here in the thick wooded course. The pads are currently rubber pads which are fine for this course. right now, there are laminated tee signs and arrows around the course. I'm not at all positive that they're going to last long out here in the remote forest area. There are already signs of vandalism. The holes are short pitch and putt with fair lines to the baskets. It's a pretty Northwest forest area. I like the fact that the designer didn't try to build a championship course here, just kept it short for the area. That works well.

# 5 and # 6 gives you some pretty views of the Willamette River although it's close enough to be a hazard to your tee shot on 5.

I liked the # 6 hole. It's a blind upshot probably only about 180', with a hyser on the end of it. it's a possible ACE run but with a little challenge besides.

The grass on the three holes in the field (7-8-9) was badly overgrown. There was a 20' fairway mowed down the middle long ago but it had not be cut recently and the grass in the rough was waist high. Few players playing this course will be able to stay on these narrow little fairways.

# 5 was a throw over a nasty 6'-8' tall patch of stinging nettles to a basket not visible from the pad. I passed on it. Not worth the itchiness and scratching involved. But ***note to players*** Remember when you do stung by the nettles, the Brachen Fern is a natural remedy that takes the sting out. Just tear off a small piece of it and rub it on your place where your stinging. It's the fern that looks more like a houseplant and is a little more delicate looking than the Sword Fern , which is the heavier looking one you'll find out here.

Is there a sewage treatment plant close by? Instead of smelling the wonderful Northwest forest pine type scent, I kept getting whiffs of a nauseating sewage type smell and my sense of smell is very poor.

Ugly grafitti on baskets already.

The long walk in had me wondering had I missed the course somehow?

I think this course would better be served by either relocating the three holes in the open field into the forest somewhere or removing them altogether and making this a nine hole course. They aren't going to be any fun on the typical wet, Oregon day when that grass is soaking wet. I believe I would end up just skipping over them most days.

The course has some interesting shots, and the baskets are fantastic--they're also yellow, which is great for guys with poor color vision, like me, who don't see red very well. I, also, love the fact that this course is ten minutes from my home in Oregon City!

The Tee pads are too short for a strong launch, which isn't a problem for at least two-thirds of the holes. The three open field shots should have longer Tees. This being a freshly built course, the "rough" is exactly that. Blackberry bushes are a royal pain to dig through to retrieve an errant throw. Hole 6 could really use some steps--I have no idea how we're going to get up that slope in the rainy season.

This may be offered to the public as a "beginner" course, but I tend to disagree. You must exercise excellent control of your disc, or plan on setting it free, never to be seen or heard from again. I lost a Leopard on hole 5 due to the fact that the hyzer I threw was obstructed from view by trees and the disc ended up somewhere in the blackberries, or down by the river. I searched for half an hour to no avail. If you're playing with a friend, have him/her spot for you when possible.

The course is located 1/3 mile from the parking lot. On a warm day, I don't mind the exercise, but if it's raining buckets, or worse, I'd like to be able to get back to my vehicle in a timely manner.