It is fun, challenging, and has great flow
Concrete Tee Pads and Nice Signs
Very hard to lose a disc
Clean, well maintained, and quiet
Good Baskets
Markers to keep you on the right track
Good hole variation and elevation change

Multi use park with walking paths
18th doesn't end near parking

Great atmosphere, felt like I was playing in a tranquil disc golf oasis in the middle of a very industrial area. The trees are very impressive too. I would give it a 5/5 but don't feel I've played enough courses nationwide to compare to yet.

Absolutely gorgeous. It may be 90 degrees out, but you'll be playing in the shade all day here. Great mix of left, right, short, long, roller, you name it. The ground is great for disc, I never felt worried about losing one. I may have been lucky, but I ran into a couple laid back, very cool locals who were happy to show me around.

Can be crowded.

I normally don't like playing through a lot of trees, but the branches here start at like 100 feet. Challenging, especially #15, but not distracting.

Fairly easy layout to follow, well tended, decent variety, beautiful landscape, great course

Can't really think of any... Except maybe the baseball/soccer field adjacent to holes 1 and 2 could probably cause some issues during those seasons

This course is a great example of what other courses should strive to be. Even a good chunk of the tee pads have the hole number in metal sunken into the concrete. Classy stuff.

PS: Thanks for hating on this review folks.

An amazing experience to play this course. One can't help but feel like he is playing in the middle of a National Forest. Immense trees cover the course and make for outstanding obstacles throught the course. These trees also make for a shady and consistent throwing environment. The holes have been well thought out and the tee signs are helpful. With such massive trees, minimal underbrush means you won't spend much time searching for discs.

Seems to have been in a rough part of town.

Only wish I had had more time to play the course 5 more times!

Absolutely beautiful course. Great layout with great flow even when busy. Killer canopy of trees to play beneath when the rain comes. Only got a little wet on hole 1. Mixed throws with choices. Clean and well maintained. Severals holes to open up on with several requiring skill and precision. I'll never pass this one up when I'm in the area...

Only two that I can think of. Parking can be tough when it's busy. Also, it is a busy course with it's location and the lack of other courses nearby. I'm sure the popularity plays a BIG factor as well.

Don't EVEN think about skipping this one if your in the area. If you do, you'll regret it.

A picturesque course located in a park with 200ft Douglass trees. When you think of a course in Oregon, this course is what you would think of. This beautifully maintained course has a great mix of holes in length. You will need to bring all your shots out of the bag, because this course requires a little of everything when it comes to shots required. Overall this course is more technical than open with the thick trees throughout the course. Although there isn't much of an elevation change, the course allows for 80% of the holes to be challenging and really fun.
Newer baskets, concrete tee pads, and great tee signs makes for another great experience navigating the course. The park is very clean and well-maintained so make sure to keep your trash and dispose of it at the front of the park. At the front of the park there are also restrooms and running water with plenty of street parking.

It's really hard to put in too many cons for this course, but then again there's always something that can be improved on. There really isn't any elevation changes, which I think really can add to a difficulty of a course. Most of the holes were more technical, and the few that were open were very bland. Make sure to watch out for bikers.

The overall challenge of this course was about a 3.75/5. This is a must play course if you are in Portland or the area in general. I had the most fun on this course than I did at Milo or Hornets, not saying it is better but I had more fun. The locals were very friendly and fun to shoot with. A great course to really take in the feel of Oregon and the beauty of the outdoors.

I love this course when I don't have enough time to get to any of the other great courses in the Portland area. The course is great in it's own right, and there are very challenging holes that IMO make me a better disc golfer. Every time I play this course I find new routes on some of the holes and types of throws to make.

New tee signs look great! Great job to everyone at stumptown and next adventure that worked on the course this summer!!

Can get kinda crowded sometimes. Just jump around on some of the holes in the middle of the course to pass up some of those 8-12+ people groups.

Hole six is one my favorite holes of all time. There is nothing better than letting a drive rip and watching the disc's flight down the hill towards the basket. Not a "top of the world" hole, but a great downhill shot for sure.

It's a huge park with lots of different types of holes to test your different throws.
The scenery is beautiful and well kept.
The abundance of huge trees provide great shade in the summer and cut down on the wind.

There are a lot of trees which can be maddening sometimes.
A beginner may be a little intimidated by this course with long holes and a few blind ones too.
It's in a bad part of town. Stay out of there at night. I was shot at while hanging out there one night. No joke!
One can easily get lost trying to find some of the holes, and only some of the tee pads have numbers on them.

All in all, it's an awesome course! I've yet to meet any unfriendly players there.

**Updated 10/14/10

Great versatility with many different types of shots, uphill, downhill, tunnel, left, right. More I can't even think of, you get to be really creative with your shots here.

Not many short holes, I like that 75% of the holes require you to actually throw a driver, as opposed to Leverich and Glenwood in Vancouver that have many holes reachable with a mid or putter.

Super challenging and competitive course.

Impossible to lose a disc here.

Looong Tee pads that remain pretty uniform throughout the course.

Well maintained baskets as well as a practice basket before the first tee.

This Park is absolutely beautiful. The tall evergreens provide cool shade in the summer, and protect from the rain in the winter.

New signs from Stumptown DG and Deek and Bryan's. Not only do the signs feature footage and major obstacles but location of the alternate pin and it's footage as well. These signs are great.

This course is everything Pacific Northwest Disc Golf is all about. A rose of the Rose City.

Not for beginners, some intermediate players might find it challenging as well.

Gets really crowded on nice days and weekends, but don't let that turn you away, you should enjoy every second you get to spend on this course.

Minimal to moderate non-Frolfer traffic, but they keep to the various paths that twist throughout the park.

This is the best Disc Golf course in the Portland Metro Area, I'd even go as far to call it possibly one of the top-5 courses in the entire Northwest.

If your a hardcore Frolfer hit this place up immediately, if you're just getting into the game or you've been playing the shorter courses of the area and want to gauge your game come here.

Enough good things cannot be said about the layout and design of this course.

*The trees. Just take my work for it, the trees are phenomenal....
*Great design. Rights, lefts, low ceiling, high ceiling, open, tight.... every type of shot required.
*Good Flow
*Challenging, yet manageable.
*Good use of minor elevation changes...
*Did I mention the trees????

*No tee signs or hole maps
*Some of the tees/pins can be difficult to locate, 6 to 7 and 13 to 14 to 15 come to mind, so if its your first time, bring a map or join up with a local.
*It can be crowded, but all of the people I've run into have been way cool.
*The park is kind of a pain to find, and its a ways out there, so get good directions, and stick to them.
*The park isn't in the best of neighborhoods, I've never had any problems, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear otherwise...

This is one of my favorite courses. The course starts out with two semi-open holes, at least by Pier's standards. Hole three is where you enter the trees. For the rest of the course, you play through, or along the edges of a huge stand of MASSIVE fir trees. The cool thing, even though the trees make you feel you're in the forest, the underbrush is nonexistent, so losing a disc isn't a huge risk.

Even though there's no HUGE elevation changes, the course incorporates a fair amount of undulation, both in the fairways and on the greens...

Again, if its your first time, make sure you get solid directions to the park, and a map of the course, but if you've never been, and you have an afternoon to kill in Portland, check this course out.

There's just something special about this place, once you get into the trees, its easy to forget you're in a city park.

Location. Scenery. Salmon berries in the summer. Variety for righties and lefties. Close to home. Easy access. I've played this course about 100 times, never tire of it. Plenty of parking. The drive over St. Johns bridge is always a pleasure, coming and going. Friendly folks for the most part. I'm blessed to live near such an amenity. Great tees, the baskets are in very good shape. Little trash here and there, mostly a clean scene. Long drives, interesting technical challenges. I've only lost one disc in 100+ trips. The story here is trees. Little underbrush, you won't lose many discs here. If you're a Portlander, you know about our local gem. If you're visiting, you can't miss this one. Close to hotels or motels and good cheap eats, like the Mexi place on Lombard that shares the same bldg as the grocery. I thought DeLa Veaga was the bomb diggity....come on down and do Pier. Couple of plusses: Even when it's rainy and windy in P-town, for some reason the weather is better at Pier----less rain and wind I've discovered. Also, cooler on hot days.

Crowds!!! However, get there before 9:00 a.m and you'll have a leisurely time. The tokers and topers haven't got an idea yet at that time, so just go a little early and you'll be fine. Otherwise, it can be a time to try your patience. Pier is all about trees, lots o'trees; control those drives. I would say the course is basically intuitive to follow; there are a couple of tees that may be tough to find. I think there's a map of Pier somewhere...print it up if it's your first time. There is only one bathroom at the first tee----. Take some skeeter-fighter in summer, just in case---we got eaten up a couple of times.

I'll throw Pier 75% of the time. If you need a change, try Leverich in Vantuckey, close by off I-5. Or, a little further south, Timber in Estacada. Or Dabney in Troutdale. For a special treat, try North Bonneville across the Columbia River. But, Pier pretty much has it all. Once it started snowing there, and it was one of those times when the snow coming through the big firs, the whole scene could have been staged in a movie. GIve it up for the volunteers who helped get Pier in gear and keep it there.

This course is in its own little world , with the towering green giants with their dark brown bark with the darkgreen foliage in the background. It can be serene. I appreciated the large concrete tees,the large area where the practice basket is and the baseball fields to practice your drives. The wide paths are appreciated through out the park since joggers and dog walkers frequent the park which brings me to the great design of Pier Park. There isn't any holes that require you to WAIT for others to get out of the way. The layout challenges all shots in the bag too.
Starting with a roller on Hole #1 & #2
( its the only part of the course that has "lawn" take advantage of it.
Hole #5 is a elevation shot up to a blinded basket.
Hole #6 - Your mouth waters as you look down at drive in elevation.
Hole #13 - Will test your over-hand.
Holes #14 & 15 - Screams "down the middle" as the basket stares at you if you have a straight drive.
Hole #18 - A wide-open drive
The scenery is WoW! tall trees

Can get crowded during afternoons and weekends.

I came up to Portland for work and discovered Pier Park. I played here 6-9 times a week for two months I've been spoiled. I was there during the hours of 6am-noon weekdays, very nice and quite its a whole different atmosphere,INCREDIBLE!

UPDATE: New tee signs and some underbrush has been removed...overall Pier Park looks at its finest. Tee signs improved my rating!

Huge course with big trees. Concrete tee-pads. Bring discs for all types of shots. Easy to navigate.

No cons from me here on this one I must say. This place kicked butt.

I could spend all day here. I'm from Seattle and will be back soon.

-Very diverse (tight holes, long holes, short holes, long bombs, left shots, right shots)
-Well taken care of
-Big old growth trees
-No underbrush-- hard to lose discs
-Lots of shade, great for playing on hot summer days
-Hot dog vendor (whooo hoooo!!!!), also sells discs on site, on hole 1
-Beautiful park right on the edge of Portland
-Can see most pins from Tee pad.

-Beau

-Course map would be nice but there were lots of friendly people around to ask. Hole 10, 11, 13 and 14 are easy to miss unless you know where you are going.
-No Tee pad marking after hole 8.

This course has it ALL. Probably best course I've ever played.

I played Pier Park on a trip to Oregon to visit my brother. His best friend lives just up the street from the park, and while he had played disc golf before he didn't know about this course! Well, there are now 2 new avid players at Pier Park after my visit. I was well aware that this course had been home to some of the best players around, like the Jenkins family, and I heard rumors that some people thought it might be as on par with some of NorCal's best courses, which really had me excited. I wasn't let down.

The douglas firs that roof the majority of this course are wonderful, and they make for fantastic obstacles on most holes. Many of the holes play up and down a moderate degree of topography, and there are ravines that make up a couple fairways as well. Very very nice, and all the while beneath this huge canopy of trees.

The tees and baskets were well-maintained, and the fairways were mostly clear and uncluttered. All the grassy parts were well-kept and mowed. This course is obviously greatly loved by its benefactors, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of their labor.

I'm not a pro by any means, but many of the holes were challenging enough and I was happy when I was making par (my first round was +1). There appeared to be a nice range of distances on the various holes, about in the range 250-500 ft. A couple were long enough to require long upshots for par (at least for me).

The railroad runs along one side of the park, and while we were playing a second round (we couldn't do just one!) a freight train was parked there along with all sorts of loud activity, machines, a huge diesel engine loping away on the engine, etc.. At first I thought this was kind of cool, but after a while I thought it could grow to become annoying.

I think it was around hole 7 or 8 that there is a weird jog in the course flow, where you have to cross several later holes to get to the next tee pad. But I'm not sure how I'd re-arrange this if I were in charge. Anyways, once you figure it out, its easy breezy.

I found myself eyeing the houses around the edge of the park, which is in a relatively poor neighborhood. This and a for-sale sign had me wondering how much it would cost to buy one, or whether a group purchase of a house in the neighborhood by a bunch of avid disc golfers might not be a bad idea. Kind of a disc golf time share, but informally organized. This kind of thing would not be affordable in Santa Cruz, where my favorite course-to-date can be found.

lovely wooded course within the city.Long and technical with nice elevation.Friendly golfers who are glad to show you course.Proshop and grill on hole one(im the vendor)

could use more signage,can get busy peak times on weekends

If you are in the portland area this course is a must visit.proshop open 12 to 6 seven days.And at 2.50 for a quesadilla and 3.50 for a huge locally made sausage with sauteed onions and garlic i believe prices are good across the board!Come check our course out

Very well kept.
Beautiful setting.
Great Flow
Plenty of Distance but no too much to scare off novices.(which i was when i played)
Challenging. (How else are you going to get better?)
Sausage Guy bye hole 1 that also happens to sell discs.(I highly recomend the cajun w/ sauteed onions)

Bathrooms and water

If it's your first time, i suggest printing the map on this site or find a local to guide you.

I've only been playing 7 months but am addicted and fortunate enough to get to travel with work and play many courses all over the country. Pier is still in my top 3 after playing over 35 courses. It is a must play. I cant wait to go back.

Great holes, good distance and good number of obstacles.

Like previous posts, you NEED THE MAP. Even with the map its a little tricky - but it at least helps.

Can be some traffic going into this part of Portland. There's only one road that gets up the course and it can get crowded.

As I played I kept thinking that this must be disc golf heaven... It wasn't, but darn close. There are a varietey of hole designs. Hilly holes, flat holes, long holes and short holes. It is set in a beautiful Portland park and has giant trees on every hole. All the pros had a 5 sealed, but a few non-disc golf related items made it lose that .5 it needed.

On arrival we had to wait for the first tee which may not be a con but unusual to me. There continued to be a person or more on every tee of the course at 1:00 on a Monday. It is a busy course. To my knowledge there were no bathrooms. We saw what looked like a drug deal, actually it happened on the fairway on 16 and they would not move there business else where so we had to skip that hole. Nothing against drugs just don't block my drive. The holes were almost challenging to navigate, but busy enough you should not have a problem.

With some signs or maps and a bathroom this could be a 5 out of 5! Another Oregon gem!

Beautiful course all around, giant 200 foot trees everywhere makes for a majestic setting.
Tough course that can be fun for players of all levels up to 1000 rated pros.
Good hole variety, dog legs, some elevation, a blind shot or two.
New concrete tee pads are sweet and the hole numbers written on them help with navigation.
Baskets just got new chains and catch very well.
Weekly league on Wednesdays through the summer.
course gets harder throughout with the last 5 holes the hardest, good hole flow.
I've never lost a disc here, there really isn't any place to lose a disc.
Course doesn't rely on OB for a challenge, and OB really doesn't come into play.
New benches put it that are sweet.

No tee signs and it can be a bit hard to navigate.
Course will get crowded on weekends.
Some crime in the area.
Long walk out after 18.

Pier is simply a fantastic course, it's a top 5 in the state no question in my mind. The course was just thought out well, it flows and has many ways to test your game. Over the last few years the local disc golf community has put in a lot of great work on this course adding new chains on the baskets, new tee pads and benches which eliminate my major complaints on the course. Pier also hosts a fun B tier in June, the Rose City Open that's a lot of fun. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of Portland you need to check Pier out, if you're traveling to the metro area it's right up there with Milo Mciver as far as must play courses.