Long Beach's 50-acre riverside wetlands and a quiet trail along the LA River
6255 De Forest Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90805
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public park.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved nature trail through 34 acres of restored wetlands along the LA River; flat 1.7-mile loop
Equipment
Photos OK
DeForest Park sits in the DeForest neighborhood of North Long Beach, California, along the Los Angeles River. The park covers roughly 50 acres and includes a community center, basketball court, playground, softball field, tennis court, and volleyball court. The 34-acre DeForest Wetlands section opened to the public on June 30, 2018 after an 18-month restoration that returned land that had become overgrown with non-native plants and choked with storm-drain runoff to a functioning riparian forest and freshwater-wetlands complex.
The restoration project was administered by the City of Long Beach in partnership with the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and conservation partners. Visioning for the project began in 2001. The completed park added walking, biking, and equestrian trails, a bicycle staging area connecting to the Los Angeles River Bikeway, native-plant restoration, and interpretive signage. The main loop trail runs through cottonwoods, coast live oaks, willows, and non-native pepper trees and is regularly used for birdwatching, walking, and educational programs.
The DeForest Park Loop is a 1.7-mile flat trail with about 36 feet of elevation change. The gate access from the surrounding neighborhood lies between Osgood Street and 59th Street.
Sources
Local tradition collected in ghost-story compilations associates the eastern segment of the DeForest Park nature trail nearest the Los Angeles River with accounts of dark figures and distant sounds. The most commonly repeated reports describe shadowy figures glimpsed at dusk near the riverbed end of the trail, moaning sounds with no identifiable source, the sound of children laughing, and patches of unexplained cold air along the path. The accounts are typical of urban-park lore in Southern California and are not corroborated in newspaper coverage or in the City of Long Beach's park materials.
The park is heavily used during daylight hours and is a popular birding location. Visitors should treat it as an urban nature park rather than an investigation site; the park gate closes at sunset.
Walk the 1.7-mile DeForest Park Loop through 34 acres of restored wetlands and a riparian forest of cottonwoods, coast live oaks, willows, and pepper trees, parallel to the Los Angeles River. The restored wetlands opened to the public in June 2018.
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