Portland’s first Moon Walk mixes protest with play
The clothing-optional night hike takes aim at logging threats while embracing the city’s appetite for nude demonstrations
On August 22, Portlanders will gather under a new moon in Forest Park for the city’s first-ever Moon Walk—a clothing-optional nighttime hike blending environmental protest with a celebration of weirdness.
Organized by the creative collective Make Portland Weirder, the Moon Walk invites adults 18 and older to strip down after crossing the Thurman Street bridge and join a guided trek, “guided by a large, illuminated moon on a pole.”1 Participants are asked to bring flashlights, sturdy shoes, and water, along with their voices in support of Oregon’s threatened forests.
Like the World Naked Bike Ride before it, the Moon Walk uses nudity as a form of political theater. This year’s event calls attention to the current presidential administration’s attempt to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, which had barred logging and road construction across 59 million acres of national forest lands—including two million acres in Oregon.2
Without protections, festival organizers warn, old-growth stands could face a 25% increase in logging, leading to habitat loss, fragmentation, and heightened wildfire vulnerability.3
The Moon Walk carries a message, but also an invitation to play. Organizers Elliot and Emily Thistlebriar describe their mission as fostering “adult play” in public life. The wording almost begs a side-eye in a naturist context, but in their framing it’s meant to signal participatory art, whimsy, and collective creativity—not sexual activity. Even so, the evening-time protest event is strictly 18 and over.
The timing is also telling. Just weeks earlier, Portland hosted two separate World Naked Bike Rides—one of the few cities in the world where such a split could still draw thousands.4 The fact that both events thrived, despite competing visions, suggests there is a particular appetite in Portland for nude demonstrations that mix protest with public spectacle. The Moon Walk fits squarely into that culture, evidence that the city’s reputation for body-positive activism is still an evolving tradition.
In this spirit, the Moon Walk serves as both civic engagement and creative experiment. Protest slogans suggested by organizers include cheeky lines like “People should be bare, not forests” and “Bare your peaks and valleys to save bears, peaks, and valleys!” 🪐
More reading
Swindler, S. (2025, August 18). Portland’s first-ever ‘Moon Walk’ will combine nudity, protest and a celebration of weirdness. The Oregonian/OregonLive. Retrieved from https://www.oregonlive.com/living/2025/08/portlands-first-ever-moon-walk-will-combine-nudity-protest-and-a-celebration-of-weirdness.html
(Swindler, 2025).
Make Portland Weirder. (2025). Why we march bare for our forests. From https://makeportlandweirder.com/moonwalk.html
Nicks, E. (2025, July 3). Two naked bike rides will roll through Portland this summer. Planet Nude. https://www.planetnude.co/p/two-naked-bike-rides-will-roll-through