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Buffalo Bayou North Trail

estimated

Urban hike · Houston metro

2.76 mi · 148 ft up (4.4 km · 45 m up)

3.1 effort mi (4.9 effort km)

What’s an effort mile?

Climbing is what makes a hike hard, and flat miles hide it. So every 500 feet of climbing counts as one extra mile (in kilometres: about 95 m of climbing per extra km).

A flat 6-mile (9.7 km) walk is 6.0 effort miles (9.7 effort km). Little Si — 3.7 miles, 1,300 ft up (6.0 km, 395 m) — is 6.3 (10.1). Your legs already knew those two are about the same amount of work.

How the numbers work — the rules behind your plan.

These numbers are estimates. We haven't walked this one ourselves to check them yet.

Loading map…

Map tiles come from a third-party host, which sees the general area shown here.

North bank of Buffalo Bayou Park, Shepherd to Sabine. Bayou banks are the only real relief in central Houston -- the ramps and bridge approaches are where the gain is.

Getting there

METRO route 20 (Canal/Memorial) runs along Memorial Dr the length of the park; the Sabine St end is a walk from downtown transit

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Source: distance measured from the seeded line (OSM ways named 'Buffalo Bayou North Trail', stitched, 2026-08-24); gain from USGS 3DEP 10 m DEM, sustained rises only; desk-sourced, not walked; map_url is Buffalo Bayou Partnership, checked Sep 3 2026; no_car_needed corrected to true Sep 3 2026, METRO route 20 verified on ridemetro.org