Ft. Stevens State Park - A Great Place for a Bike Ride

August 23, 2025—With the temperature where I live forecasted to be 102°F, I wanted to seek out a cooler place to spend the day, and that place happened to be Ft. Stevens State Park in the northwest corner of Oregon. Ft. Stevens has a great bike trail system with 15 miles of multi-use trails. Among the park’s other outdoor recreation amenities are a large campground complex, Coffenbury Lake, which is popular with paddlers and fishermen, a historic decommissioned military complex that was used from the Civil War through WWII, and a beach where the remains of a Peter Iredale lie rusting. Little remains of the four-masted steel barque built in England in 1890 except the bow. The state park is a mixture of dense forest, woods, dunes, and wetlands. The bike trail traverses all those ecosystems.

I arrived at Ft. Stevens State Park a little after 9 a.m. Driving through Seaside, Oregon, was a breeze this morning. I didn’t expect my drive home later in the day to be as easy because the Hood to Coast race would be finishing up on the beach in Seaside after noon.

The weather was cooler but not cool. Even at the coast, the temperature was still expected to be in the upper 80s. I brought my hybrid bike for this trip, and it’s a good thing I did. Tree roots have buckled the trails in many places, making for a sometimes bumpy ride. For that reason, I felt my hybrid bike with its suspension fork better suited for the trail system. I recommend leaving the road bike behind and bringing either a hybrid, mountain, or cruiser bike that will handle the bumps better and provide you with a more comfortable ride.

If you get out on the trails early enough, there is a good chance you might encounter deer or elk in the grasslands or woods. In previous visits, I have spotted deer crossing the trail just before I entered the military complex. Today I spotted several instances of fresh elk droppings near the wetlands.

When my daughter was very young, I would take her to Ft. Stevens and play hide-and-go-seek in the numerous gun batteries. Visitors can’t do that as much these days since the rooms in Battery Pratt, the largest gun battery, have been chained off to protect the historic building. However, kids seem to enjoy investigating and playing in Battery Russell.

I always start my ride at Battery Russell. It’s sort of in the center of the park system. Parking at Battery Russell is less crowded than at the military museum and it’s also free. It costs $5 at the other parking lots within the park. However, the parking fee will rise to $10 for in-state visitors and $12 for out-of-state visitors beginning October 1, 2025.

I rode many of the trails twice, and by the end of the day had ridden a little over 21 miles. Besides the variety of habitats the trails run through, the trails also cross several of the park roads, either over the road by a bridge near Battery Russell or under the road through one of two tunnels located near Coffenbury Lake and under the road leading to the Peter Iredale. Another bridge spans the wetland near the military complex. These bridges and tunnels help to make the ride fascinating and fun.

While visiting today, I discovered that there is a bike rental kiosk in the campground that rents bikes for $10 a day. You can’t beat that price. There used to be a bike rental just outside the park, but it closed years ago, and for a long time visitors would need to bring their own bike, so I was thrilled to see there was a new bike rental place within the park. I wish that I had known this when my family visited in early July. I wanted to take them to Ft. Stevens to ride bikes and let my granddaughter explore the batteries, but I was under the impression we’d need to rent bikes in Seaside and bring them to Ft. Stevens. That wasn’t practical, so we wound up spending the day in Seaside.

If you want to camp at the campground, it’s best to make reservations as early as possible because Ft. Stevens is a very popular state park. You can make reservations eight months in advance. Due to its popularity, however, some people complain about it seeming crowded in the campground. If crowded campgrounds bother you, then just plan for a day visit.

If staying for multiple days, I might suggest riding on the Riverwalk Trail in Astoria. There are other sights to see in Astoria as well: the Astoria Column and “The Goonies” house. Nearby to Ft. Stevens is Ft. Clatsop National Memorial, which is in riding distance (8.1 miles) from Ft. Stevens. Ft. Clatsop was the winter quarters for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The fort is a replica based on Clark’s actual sketches.