Willow Bar Islands Hike
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
- Start point: Willow Bar Islands Trailhead
- End point: Lower Willow Bar Point
- Hike Type: In and out
- Distance: 3.0 miles
- Elevation gain: 10 feet
- High Point: 10 feet
- Difficulty: Easy
- Seasons: All year
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: No
- Crowded: No
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Hike Description
A series of public beaches lines the northeast shore of Sauvie Island. The longest is described in the Warrior Point Hike, but Willow Bar Beach also offers some seclusion once you have traveled away from the highly popular access point. The site attracts fishermen, sunbathers, and swimmers in the summer and can be very crowded on warm, sunny days. However, after the first quarter mile or so, you are left with splendid vistas of Mount Saint Helens and your footprints mingled with the tracks of deer and raccoon in the sand. The Willow Bar Islands are now a spit but formerly formed a group of shoals separated by shallow sloughs. Early navigators termed this the Lower Willow Bar, while the Upper Willow Bar was in the vicinity of Frenchmans Bar on the Washington side of the river.
Walk out to the beach, where you will get a face on view across to Mount Saint Helens. You can keep to the beach or hike a cottonwood-shaded vehicle track and then a footpath through blackberries and horsetails before dropping to the sand. In late winter, the corpses of spawned out smelt (eulachons) may have washed ashore and California sea lions may be blaring and quarreling in the river. Past the last vehicle-accessible area, there will be fewer people and you may have the beach to yourself.
Under the cottonwoods, there’s a fairly dense scrubland of willow, red osier dogwood, Armenian blackberry, nettles, wild rose, and reed canary-grass. If you venture inland, you’ll have to contend with these although, farther south, there are a couple of large moss-covered meadows. Keeping to the beach, look up for bald eagles and hawks in the cottonwoods. At the end of the main strand, a short trail leads up and over riprap to a small beach. From here, you can go up to a grassy, blackberry-covered area with a few large driftwood logs that marks the north end of the island. (It’s a blackberry tangle at the actual point itself.) From this vantage point, Mount Saint Helens seems to loom close and Mount Rainier just peeks above the hills. To the east, one can see Mount Adams and Mount Hood.
It’s a tangle of brush in the interior of the island, so a full loop would be an uncomfortable undertaking. Instead, stroll back to the parking area via the beach.
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Gate on access road locked at 10:00 p.m.
- $10 day-use fee
- Dogs on leash near trailhead
- Port-a-potties
Maps
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for Willow Bar Islands Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for Willow Bar Islands Hike
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- none
More Links
- Willow Bar Islands Trail Overview (Wild Columbia County)
- Willow Bar Islands and Willow Point, Sauvie Island (The Columbia River: A Photographic Journey
- Sauvie Island Wildlife Area (Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife)
Contributors
- bobcat (creator)