Biking, birding and paddling are the main draws of Sauvie Island, 10 miles northwest of Portland where the Willamette River meets the Columbia.
Add a clothing-optional beach, flat roads for bicycling, history, trails, camping, slower pace, fall color, pumpkin patches and a haunted maze to the mix, and there’s enough here to keep all ages smiling and busy for a day or a weekend.
The island, named after a French employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company and home to a little more than 1,000 residents, is split between private ownership, mostly farms, and the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area on the north end.
Kruger’s Farm Market’s Don Kruger knows why Sauvie Island is becoming a magnet for bikers, walkers and birders.
“What’s not to like?” asks Kruger. “It’s so close; 10 miles from downtown Portland. You cross the bridge and life changes. Where else can you go 10 miles and run into a place like Sauvie Island? It’s protected and it’s not going to change.”
Pumpkin patches, bicycling and birding
 Sauvie Island farms provide u-pick opportunities for several fruits and vegetables as well as fall activities. The Pumpkin Patch features Oregon’s original cornfield maize and has a haunted maize, too.
Bicyclists can park at the lot at the island end of the bridge off Highway 30 and check out the large map of the island to get your bearings. The most popular ride is an easy 12-mile loop through farmlands around the southern end of the island along Sauvie Island Road, Reeder Road and Gillihan Road. If you want a longer ride, there are other roads to explore, particularly if you want to go to a beach or wetland.
If it’s a clear day, look for Rainier, St. Helens, Hood and Adams. Keep an eye out for raptors, an old red pick-up with flowers growing out of the engine compartment, and houseboats on the Multnomah Channel on the west side.
The north half of the island is the wildlife area managed by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department. The 12,000 acres were purchased for waterfowl habitat. The island is also on the official Oregon Important Bird Area list.
“It’s a phenomenal wintering area and migratory stopover,” said refuge manager Mark Nebeker. In 1805, the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition would have agreed.
“Lewis and Clark wouldn’t spend the night … It was too noisy with ducks and geese and swans,” Nebeker said.
“The fall and winter is when the wildlife area shines,” he added. “The waterfowl start moving in and shorebirds start moving through … The winter concentration of birds is about 200,000 from about Nov. 1 through the end of February.”
(Note: Refuge areas are open to the public mid-April to Sept. 30. During hunting season, access to those areas where hunting is allowed requires a hunting permit even if you’re bird-watching. A $3.50 use permit for the refuge and beaches is required.)
Sauvie Island is the only site in western Oregon and Washington that attracts sandhill cranes in large numbers; about 4,000 in the fall and spring migrations include about 2,000 wintering cranes.
Each February a Raptor Road Trip is held on the refuge designed to see birds of prey, including bald eagles, red-tail hawks, northern harriers, peregrine falcons, kestrels and merlins.
There are five bald eagle nests on the refuge and several more on private lands, Nebeker said. One sits about 120 feet up in an oak tree overlooking the Oak Island loop trail in Sauvie Island’s interior.
 Oak Island hasn’t been an island since a levee and road was built to it, placing it between Sturgeon and Steelman freshwater lakes. The large and beautiful oak grove in the middle is the only large concentration of white oaks on the refuge and many are very large and very old.
The refuge offers even more. A three-mile trail from the end of Reeder Road leads to Warrior Rock Lighthouse. Warrior Rock was named by an early British explorer after meeting dozens of Native Americans in canoes, dressed for battle, at the north end of the island. The original inhabitants were the Multnomah Indians.
Boats and ships navigating the Columbia have looked to Sauvie Island since two red lanterns were placed at Warrior Rock in 1877, two years before a small lighthouse was built. Today, only an automated light exists.
The eye-opener of the 16.5-mile-long island, the largest along the Columbia River, is a clothing-optional beach on the Columbia administered by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. About 75 percent of the sunbathers go nude or topless, so if that’s not your style, try the public beaches on Reeder Road, about nine miles from the bridge.
While there are no kayak rentals on Sauvie, Scappoose Bay Kayaking near the town of Warren offers options for trips across Multnomah Channel to the refuge area. Or put in at a beach or lake.
Whether you’re driving, pedaling, paddling or walking, Sauvie Island has plenty to offer.
Outdoors travel writers Sharon Wootton and Maggie Savage, authors of “You Know You’re in Washington When …”, live in the San Juan Islands and can be reached at (360) 468-3964.
If You Go
Accommodations. RV hook-ups at Reeder Beach Resort, (503) 621-3970, on the Columbia River; a yurt, tents and RV sites at Sauvie Cove RV Park (503) 621-9701.
Directions: Take Highway 30 heading west of Portland, and the Sauvie Island Bridge.
Howell Territorial Park. 120-acre park one mile north of the bridge on Northwest Sauvie Island Road; pioneer orchard, wetlands, restored 1850s farmhouse; (503) 797-1850.
Howell Territorial Park. 120-acre park one mile north of the bridge on Northwest Sauvie Island Road; pioneer orchard, wetlands, restored 1850s farmhouse; (503) 797-1850.
Kruger Farms. Working farm with a corn maize; 17100 N.W. Sauvie Island Road; (503) 621-3489.
Kruger Farms. Working farm with a corn maize; 17100 N.W. Sauvie Island Road.; (503) 621-3489.
Sauvie Island Wildlife Refuge. Maps and $3.50 day permits for the refuge and public beaches at the Oregon Fish and Wildlife office, 18330 Northwest Sauvie Island Road.; (503) 621-3488.
Scappoose Bay Kayaking. Rentals and tours to Sauvie Island; (877) 272-3353, www.scappoosebaykayaking.com.
The Pumpkin Patch. 16511 Northwest Gillihan Rd.; (503) 621-3874.
U-pick farms. Go north on Northwest Sauvie Island Road or south on Gillihan Road.
Travel Portland. www.travelportland.com, (503) 275-9750.
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