Wednesday, July 1, 2021
- Starting Point: Siltcoos River
- End Point: Umpqua Lighthouse State Park
- Daily Miles: 23.7 miles
- Cumulative OCT miles: 248.1 miles
The ominous gray clouds I’d been staring at as I walked along the Oregon Dunes yesterday brought overnight rain and strong wind.
As a result, my tent fly, which was staked down with lightweight 6” stakes, kept coming loose in the sand. One minute I’d be sound asleep, and the next, I’d feel the rain blowing in on me while my tent fly snapped in the wind like a flag.
One of the downsides of camping in this terrain is there are never any rocks around to help when the ground is too soft. And the majority of the wood in the vicinity is lightweight driftwood that’s equally unhelpful when trying to weigh something down.
At 2 am, I eventually I got tired of trying deal with my rainfly blowing around though. I walked over to a nearby campsite and snagged a log from a dormant fire pit. I’d use whatever it took to keep my tent fly staked out again so I could get back to sleep.
When I woke up for good around 6:40 am, everyone in the campground was still sound asleep. No one saw me sneak back over to return the firewood to its home just after dawn.
The quiet campground this morning wasn’t surprising though. Many of the patrons were out riding the dunes until well past dark. And based on the sheer number of empty beer cans scattered by some of the nearby picnic tables, they didn’t exactly seemed like early birds.
MORE DUNES
It was still gray and overcast today, but at least the rain had stopped long enough for me to pack up my gear and stuff my wet, sandy rain fly in my pack’s outside mesh pocket. Hopefully, I’d get a chance to dry it out one of my breaks on the beach later on.
I didn’t return back out to the beach when I departed camp this morning. Doing so would have just forced me to wade across the Siltcoos River in the cold morning air. Instead, I opted to follow the access road up to the other two campgrounds to my east.
Driftwood II, the campground where I’d stayed at last night, was one of three primitive USFS campgrounds clustered along the outlet of the Siltcoos River. Farther inland, sat the Lagoon Campground and the Waxmyrtle Campground, both of which appeared to be designed more for car camping than the parking lot/OHV staging area like Driftwood II.
Resting between the two upper campgrounds sat a wonderful wooden bridge that would take me across the Siltcoos while keeping my shoes and legs perfectly dry.
This short detour took me past a lagoon and a surprisingly lush marsh, and then over to the Waxmyrtle Trail. I personally wouldn’t call it a proper trail. It was a soft sandy path, and immensely difficult to hike on. But it was still better than fording the cold river!
The wildlife on this sandy estuary trail was a nice change from boring seagulls and snowy plowers too. There were herons and other waterfowl. The predominant background noise was the croaking of frogs. And there was even a laminated sign noting that the last bear sighting in the area was less than two weeks ago!
After about a mile of a mile of deep sand hiking, I finally returned to the beach again. It was low tide now, so the beach was much easier to walk than it had been yesterday afternoon. The wet, hard-packed surface was almost as smooth as pavement.
I could see several gray seals out playing in the surf up ahead of me. They were laying at the water’s edge and letting the waves crash over them as they came in. It was kind of like watching kidding enjoying the water. The one would arch its back when the waves hit, pushing its tail and nose into the air so the waves rocked him back and forth. Meanwhile one of his partners tried to remain as prone as possible while the waves washed over her body. It was all rather amusing to observe.
It wasn’t long before the rain was back again and it quickly soaked through my jacket as I hiked in the solitude of the beach. No one was out riding the dunes yet. It was just me, the crashing noise of the waves to my right, and the monotonous scenery ahead.
The only thing breaking up the tedium this morning was the occasional item I’d pass on the sand. A crab. Some flotsam washed ashore. An oddly-shaped driftwood log that I imagined was a seal.
After a while, I reached Tahkenitch Creek, which was easy enough to ford because the water was only shin-deep. Then I saw a USFS pickup truck patrolling the beach before I returned back to the stale routine of walking on the sand.
This gloomy, damp experience would dominate the first 10 miles of the day until I got down to the Threemile Creek and had to detour into Reedsport to get around the Umpqua River.
By late-morning, the rain was finally beginning to peter out, but my mood was definitely in the dumps. I’m not sure whether it was the dark weather or the dull scenery surrounding me, but I could’t wait to get to the end of this section of the OCT. The Oregon Dunes were completely over rated in my opinion.
UMPQUA
Next up was my lengthy detour around the Umpqua River. This might be the the most powerful river that I’d come across on this trail, and the two of us were no strangers.
Back in July 2020, I thru-hiked the North Umpqua Trail beginning at the river’s headwaters up in the Cascade Mountains. For 90 miles, I followed the river west through the Umpqua National Forest, past reservoirs and dams that harnessed its power, and even beside some of its salmon spawning beds.
The Umpqua River played a memorable part in my formative years too. I used to love when my parent took my sisters and me to visit the Umpqua fish ladder beside Winchester Dam. It’s one of my fondest memories and I’ve taken my own son there many times too.
Even now, I still see the name Umpqua on a daily basis. Umpqua Dairy, founded in 1931, is one of top producers of milk and ice cream in the state. You can’t go to a grocery store in Oregon without seeing the name Umpqua somewhere.
But today, the Umpqua River would mean something else for me. It would be in the longest roadwalk around a river outlet on the entire OCT. When I departed the beach at Threemile Creek, I’d have to walk 13.5 miles inland around parts of the river before I returned to the ocean again.
The reason for this long detour has do with the shape of the Umpqua River. It doesn’t just dump straight into the ocean. Instead, it makes a big curve north and then bends back on itself. This geographic quirk forced the state to build the bridge several miles inland near of the town of Reedsport.
ROADWALKING
Unfortunately for my mood, the hike around the mouth of the Umpqua River nearly as dull as the beach had been. I followed a gravel forest service road for four miles, slowly climbing in elevation much of the way.
Then I was back out on Highway 101 again, following the deserted train tracks as I headed toward the minuscule town of Gardiner.
Once past Gardiner, the highway crossed the river in two separate spans. The Upper Umpqua Bridge took me out to Bolon Island, a 11.4 acre island in the middle of the Umpqua, before a second bridge completed the journey.
Bolon Island’s main allure is for birders looking to spot one of the hundreds of double crested cormorants that nest there. But the island has some other attributes too. There are some shorter hiking trails across it, and people can bring their own kayaks to paddle around the island’s perimeter.
Once I got over the bridges and south of the Umpqua River, I was finally in the coastal town of Reedsport, where the first sight welcoming me to town was a statue of Smokey Bear in front of the local forest station.
Seeing Smokey started to lift my mood. I was now at nearly 19 miles of hiking for the day, and was almost to tonight’s destination. It was only four more miles until Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just had to keep my head down and walk.
The town of Reedsport had a rather dreary, run-down feel to it as I walked down its main strip on Highway. It wasn’t an objectively bad town. I was just in a blah mood. My feet were sore from yesterday’s long mileage. The weather was crummy and gray. And the scenery today paled in comparison to the last few days.
It’s hard to compare these boring sand dunes to the dramatic cliffs and forested headlands, lighthouses, or gorgeous sunsets of the past few days.
Perhaps my foul mood would evaporate when I got to the hiker-biker camp at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park though. Maybe there would be other OCT hikers there. Or some super cool cyclists like the ones I’d met at the other hiker-biker camps earlier this week. Anything to lift me out of this funk.
UMPQUA LIGHTHOUSE
As I made my way out of town, I made two stops deliberately designed to boost my crummy mood. My first one was at a convenience store where I grabbed a soda (for now) and a tall can of craft beer (for later). Then I stopped at BJ’s Ice Cream shop near the Winchester Bay docks.
A little Umpqua ice cream was surely to do the trick, right?
Unfortunately, I walked in right behind a group of five teenagers, all of whom ordered a milkshakes. The poor clerk only had one blender and so I spend the next 15 minutes patiently waiting as he made milkshake after blasted milkshake.
When I finally got my turn, I was excited to see they had my favorite flavor. Peppermint! Yesssss.
With the rush of sugar fueling me, the final stretch of Highway 101 went fast. The road was uphill, but it had a nice wide shoulder to walk on. And, before I knew it, I was hiking into camp.
My mood would come crashing down though as soon as I realized that I was all alone. There weren’t any other hikers and bikers staying there night there. And the camp was even more meager than the last two I’d stayed at. There was just enough room for two or three tents next to a single picnic table.
There was wooden box was off to the side to secure food away from the critters. But there weren’t any fancy USB ports to charge my phone. I’d been pretty spoiled up north by some of the amenities at the other hiker-biker camps.
With no one to talk to, I suspect it will be an early night, and I just beginning to eat dinner when the rain started up once again. Well that figures. I may as well just turn in and get this miserable day over with already.
Then, around 8 pm, an RV showed to park in the empty spot directly in front of the hiker-biker camp. As soon as they backed their large Cruise America rental RV into the site, it blocked out any remaining light and made the hiker-bike camp feel even tinier and more claustrophobic.
But then bad turned to worse. While the parents were busy connected all the RV’s power cords and hoses in the rain, their toddler was busy throwing a full-blown temper tantrum over god knows what. He was inside the RV, but I could hear the kid screaming his head off for the next 70 minutes!
The parents’ approach was just to let him cry it out. And, as a fellow parent, I’d normally support that choice. But tonight, being serenaded by screaming child just felt like the cherry on top of a crummy day.
Sigh! Tomorrow has to be better.
Highlights
- Hiking on the Waxmyrtle Trail back out to the beach this morning was interesting. This little wetlands trail was a nice break from dunes, dunes, and more dunes.
- Posing with the statue of Smoky Bear as I made my way into Reedsport put a brief smile on my face.
Challenges
- Waking up multiple times throughout the night to fix my tent’s rain fly each time it came unstaked in the wind and rain was less than ideal. Thank goodness I found some firewood to hold it down.
- Getting drenched in a light rain that last all morning long (despite a weather forecast to the contrary), certainly didn’t help my mood today. I might have enjoyed the mind numbing Oregon Dunes a bit more with some sunshine.
- It was a bit of a drag not having any company to entertain me in the hiker-biker camp at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. I’d had such great experiences with the past three hiker-biker camps.