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)

• 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
• 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 regulated to accommodate fishing and canoeing, while Bybee Lake is allowed to rise and fall naturally with the tides and the seasons. Not surprisingly, the latter 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 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

• Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area (Metro)

Trip Reports

• Search Trip Reports for Smith and Bybee Lakes Hike

• 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)

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”)

Contributors

• bobcat (creator)