(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)
Pickathon, the 15-year-old music festival rooted in roots and held each August at Pendarvis Farm a few miles southeast of Portland’s city limits, is unusual in lots of ways.
For one thing, last weekend’s event is known as one of the most environmentally friendly festivals in the country. More controversially, it’s chosen higher door prices ($260 this year for a weekend pass) over hefty concession fees and bigger crowds.
But one of the most interesting things about Pickathon is that, befitting a farm-based festival that’s so freakishly close to the big city, it makes a concert series in the countryside feel, in the best sense, urban.
It’s a formula that only works because Pickathon manages to fit so much festival on so little land so close to the city: the whole farm is just 80 acres. And that’s something it does with a big assist from bikes.
The key to reaching Pickathon by bike is the Springwater Corridor Trail, the rails-to-trail path that runs right into Portland’s inner east side. The best way to reach Pickathon by bike from Portland is to ride the Springwater to 158th Avenue and head about four miles south via Foster Road (briefly), 162nd Avenue, Baxter Road, 170th, 172nd and finally Hagen Road.
If you arrive that way, you’ll have plenty of company:
Thanks to the space that Pickathon doesn’t have to reserve for auto parking — about 25 percent of the 7,000 or so attendees arrives by bike, bus or shuttle, and thousands more carpool — its main amphitheater is uncrowded and relaxed.
But for a lover of urban design, the more interesting parts of Pickathon might be the lounge area tucked behind the main stage, for food and drink:
Further from its main stage, the festival is full of places to explore, including rows of city-quality food carts competing for your business.
Two secondary stages offer acoustic acts.
A network of paths integrates the music festival with the campground that sets up in the woods nearby and the working farm that hosts the whole thing:
Around a corner you might see the bike-based Hydrofiets water fountain.
Unlike the huge, rural Gorge Amphitheater, this temporary city leaves relatively little grassy space to spare for recreation, but there is some.
Instead, most of the main concert space is devoted to a few hundred blankets:
And, of course, music:
With buses and shuttles popular and bike attendance on the rise, Pickathon organizers have floated the idea of cutting out auto parking (currently available for $25 per day) and going completely car-free. That’d truly make it a one-of-a-kind event.
But for now, Portland’s backyard music festival is a three-day reminder of how much value bikes can create by making efficient use of precious urban space, and how much people tend to cherish time they spend in spaces that haven’t been designed around the automobile.