Revision as of 02:50, 13 March 2015

Pelicans on Bybee Lake in the summer (bobcat)

Viewing platform at Smith Lake (bobcat)

Leafy beggar ticks (Bidens frondosa), Smith Lake (bobcat)

Common teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), Bybee Lake (bobcat)

Trails at Smith and Bybee Lakes (bobcat)

• Start point: Smith and Bybee Trailhead
• End point: Bybee Lake
• Trail Log:
• Hike Type: Out-and-back
• Distance: 2.1 miles
• Elevation gain: 10 feet
• High Point: 25 feet
• Difficulty: Easy
• Seasons: All
• Family Friendly: Yes
• Backpackable: No
• Crowded: Yes

Hike Description

This 200-acre property, in the middle of the rather faceless port area, is the biggest wetland park in a U.S. city. Interestingly, the two lakes are maintained in different ways: Smith Lake’s water levels are more constant to accommodate fishing and canoeing, while Bybee Lake rises and falls naturally with the tides and the seasons and the help of a water control structure installed in the 2000s. Not surprisingly, the latter lake is where you are more likely to see large numbers of water birds.

Head back from the trailhead parking area on the roadside walk with cottonwoods on your left and ponderosa pine plantings across the road to your right. Just before the park entrance, find a paved path, the Interlakes Trail, which leads off into an Oregon ash/black cottonwood bottomland with a dense understory of snowberry and red osier dogwood. Note the 1996 flood level on a sign. At a junction, go right for a view of a slough which should exhibit basking turtles and gadwalls on a sunny day.

Going left takes you on a loop toward Smith Lake. Stop at the gazebo for views of the larger lake’s expanse and note the beaver activity in the area (Many trees here have been caged for protection from these large rodents). Continue around to the main paved trail and go left. You get a view of Bybee Lake and the trail fetches up at a viewing gazebo. In summer, common egrets, white pelicans, great blue herons, pied-billed grebes, ducks, ospreys, and bald eagles will be prospecting these waters. It is one of Portland’s great avifauna convocations!

Past the gazebo, you can continue farther on a foot trail through the dense reed canary-grass with a few spurs approaching the lake via thickets of water smartweed.

Fees, Regulations, etc.

• No dogs or bicycles
• Open dawn to dusk

Maps

• Maps: Hike Finder
• Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area (Metro)
• North Portland Bike/Walk Map (Portland Bureau of Transportation)

Trip Reports

• Search Trip Reports for Smith and Bybee Lakes Hike

• A couple of urban hikes 3/18
• 1 Forest & 3 Lakes

Related Discussions / Q&A

• Search Trail Q&A for Smith and Bybee Lakes Hike

Guidebooks that cover this hike

• Wild in the City: Exploring the Intertwine by Michael C. Houck and M.J. Cody (editors)
• Nature Walks In and Around Portland by Karen & Terry Whitehill
• Peaceful Places: Portland by Paul Gerald

More Links

• Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area (Portland Parks)

• Smith and Bybee Wetlands (Metro)

• Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area (Audubon Society of Portland)

• Smith and Bybee Wetlands (Portland Family Adventures)

• Smith and Bybee Lakes, Oregon (The Columbia River “A Photographic Journey”)

• Smith Lake (Atlas of Oregon Lakes)

• Bybee Lake (Atlas of Oregon Lakes)

Contributors

• bobcat (creator)