Wednesday June 16, 2021
- Start Point: Bayocean Peninsula Park (south end of Tillamook Bay)
- End Point: Sand Lake Recreation Area
- Daily Mileage: 24.7 miles
- Cumulative Miles on the OCT: 88.3 miles
When I last left off on Day 3, I’d just reached Barview Jetty County Park on the northern end of Tillamook Bay. It was cold and rainy. My feet hurt tremendously from the prior two days of big miles and roadwalking. And I was drenched from the rain all morning long.
When I finally rolled up to Keith and Finn’s campsite around lunchtime, they were huddled inside their tent trying to stay warm and dry. Keith even had his sleeping bag swaddling his feet because he was so cold.
As I took it all in, I noticed the side of their tent was now covered with duct tape in a 8″x10″ rectangle. They regaled me with stories from the past few days involving a persistent campground squirrel (nicknamed ‘Lucifer’) who kept gnawing his way inside their tent, despite the fact that there wasn’t any food in there. Hence the duct tape patch job to keep the rain out.
I could tell by their demeanor, the two of them were 100% done with the coast. Camping and fishing is normally an adventure for them. But three consecutive days of rain and 40-50 degree temperatures had zapped all the enjoyment out of it. They were ready to hit the road and head home for a few days. And I didn’t blame them.
And so that’s what we did. We stopped for a late lunch at Pelican Bay Brewing in Tillamook. Then we drove the 2.5 hours back home to Eugene, where we all took nice hot showers and slept in our own warm, soft beds before it was time for me to return back to the coast.
Tillamook Bay
Looking ahead though, I had some decisions to make. OCT thru-hikers have three options when they get to at Tillamook Bay:
- Option 1: Trek down to the pier in Garibaldi, and then catch a ride across Tillamook Bay to the northern tip of the Bayocean Peninsula.
- Option 2: Walk 19 miles all the way around the bay – and through the town of Tillamook – before resuming the trail at the southern base of the peninsula.
- Option 3: Get a ride around Tillamook Bay and begin again at Bayocean Peninsula Park in the middle of the peninsula
I’d spent a week camping in Garibaldi last October, and I rode every one of those miles from the port of Garibaldi around Tillamook Bay on my bike last fall. I knew exactly what it looked like. Plus, I didn’t need to go into downtown Tillamook to resupply, so the middle option was a non-starter for me.
If we’d stayed out on the coast overnight, I probably would have preferred taking the boat shuttle across the bay just so I could experience it.
But, in the end it just seemed easier for everyone if I chose the final option. We were already returning to the coast by car anyway. It didn’t make sense to drive me back to the northern end of the bay, just to have me try to flag down a local fisherman for a boat ride to the south side.
I’m not losing any sleep over being a ‘hiking purist’ on the OCT. It’s impossible to create a continuous footpath from Washington to California unless you want to add a lot of extra roadwalking. There’s just too many bays and estuaries to cross. So my definition of success on this trail is just to hike as much of the coast as feasible and see as many things as I can along the way.
Bayocean to Cape Meares
We got up super early this morning. But, the two and half hour drive back out to the coast meant we didn’t arrive at Bayocean Peninsula Park until just after 8:30 am.
When we pulled into the dirt parking area, there were already several cars in the lot. But there was one sight I didn’t expect to see: the van from Pelican Brewing Company.
For a moment, I was hoping they were setting up a free tasting or doing some sort of promotion in the park. But that was silly. It was breakfast time! Not beer time.
In reality, the van was there was dropping off some cyclists. Three of them were busy pulling their bicycles from the rear of the vehicle so they could ride up the dike road to the tip of the peninsula and back down to Cape Meares.
Bayocean Peninsula Park sits in the middle of the peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and Tillamook Bay on the other. To get back out to the OCT, I’d need to hike a half-mile west to the beach through ankle-deep sand and tall European beach grasses
The peninsula was once developed, but a combination of erosion and a big storm in November 1952 put an end to full-time living out on this precarious sand spit. Now it’s a recreation spot for hikers, cyclists, fisherman, and beachgoers.
It also serves as a habitat for local marine life, and I could hear the chirping of plovers as walked between the tall foliage and brush on my way back out to the ocean.
I spent the first 10 minutes of the day trudging through the trail of soft sand (and feeling like half of it was ending up inside my shoes). So, I felt relieved to crest the final dunes and to return the wet, hard-packed sand that lined the beach.
The tide was out, revealing a wider than normal beach as I headed south down the outside of the peninsula toward Cape Meares. The timber-covered headland of Cape Meares dominated the horizon, while a bare rocky island named Pillar Rock jutted up from the ocean just off the coastline.
As I closed the distance over the next hour, I keep looking off to my left for some sort of sign of a trail departing the beach. I knew from my research that I’d need to turn inland somewhere ahead, but nothing apparent was emerging. No signs. No dirt path. Nothing.
Given the lack of resources for this trail, I was relying heavily on a day hiking guidebook for the Oregon Coast. It claimed there was a trail that led from the beach up to the top of Cape Meares. Yet it wasn’t apparent where the opening for that trail began.
The terrain to my left was no longer soft sand dunes covered with beach grass. It was now an abrupt, steep cliff that rose at least six to eight feet above me. There was no way I could scramble up that muddy, vertical shear. Even if I could get a foothold, I’d jut slip and slide right back down.
I double-checked my guidebook again. It said there was a path at the end of the beach. But where? I was 100 yards from the end of the beach and I couldn’t see anything.
I decided I’d walk all the way to the rocks in front of me before doubling back to Lake Meares. If I didn’t see anything by then, I’d just resign myself to duplicating the morning’s miles out on roadwalk up Bayshore Drive instead.
At the very end of the beach though, I passed a small stream pouring down the side of the cliff. And just beyond it, I could see a rope draped over the edge. It had knots tied in every foot or two, like a climbing rope. Was this the route I was looking for?
I put my faith in the rope and used it pull myself up the steep muddy wall. And sure enough, there was a flat spot at the top of the ledge. Everything around me was overgrown, but if I looked closely enough, I could see a faint trail leading into the woods. Yesssss!
Cape Meares
The trail up Cape Meares was completely covered by wet ferns that reached my hips, and the tread was muddy and slick. But it eventually opened up to a normal dirt trail once it forged under the canopy of tall trees. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I was hiking in the woods somewhere inland, not on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
Near the top of the challenging climb, the trail finally leveled off. Signs ahead of me led to a parking area, and I went over to assess my options at a map posed by the trailhead. I could walk down a paved road toward the scenic viewpoints along the top of Cape Meares and the OCT; or I could stay on this narrow trail for another quarter-mile further and see the tallest sitka spruce tree in the state.
I’ve seen plenty of epically tall trees in my life, from the giant sequoias in California’s Central Valley to the redwoods of Northern California. So, it’s not like I needed another massive tree experience to impress me.
But, I figured this was why I was out here on the Oregon Coast. I wanted to see everything my home state had to offer. How could I possibly bypass an 800 year old tree that towered 144 feet in the air? It was just an half-mile detour (roundtrip) after all.
After my short side trip, it was time to return to the parking area and take the paved road leading to the Cape Meares scenic viewpoint. During this easy downhill walk, I saw two young men on skateboards. They were holding onto the bed of a pick-up truck that was slowly propelling them back up the parking area where I’d just come from.
Then a few minutes later, each skateboarder came roaring past me going at least 20 miles per hour down the sharp s-curves. I’m sure hurtling down a smooth paved road on a skateboard is a major adreneline rush for someone. But, let’s be honest. It’s something I would never dare to do. Not for a million bucks.
I’m a complete chicken when it comes to any sort of fast downhill adventures – be it a ski slope, a mountain bike trail, or anything else. Moreover, I’ve already broken enough bones for one lifetime. So watching someone take that epic risk on a road with tourist traffic on it just made me shake my head in disbelief.
When I eventually made it down to the Cape Meares visitor area at my own slow pace, I could see a large wooded viewing platform just ahead. A small cluster of people were standing on it and they all seemed to have binoculars held up to their eyes as they quietly staring out to sea.
As I approached them, an older lady turned to me and excitedly explained that they were looking at some peregrine falcons who’d build a nest in the national wildlife preserve that I’d just hiked up. I’m not sure that I could actually see any of the falcons she was pointing to. Yet, taking in the bluffs dropping hundreds of feet down toward the turquoise waves was definitely worth the visit.
Off to the side of the viewing platform, a paved path followed the edge of the headland, so I set off down there to see explore what it might hold. About a quarter-mile later, I reached the end of the path and I was stunned to see that I was actually above the Cape Meares lighthouse.
The lighthouse was set into the side of the cliff, and the path terminated above it bringing visitors eye level with its red and white fresnel lens. The lens was no longer rotating though, as it was deactivated in 2014, after 124 years of continuous operation!
I’ve never actually stood level with a lighthouse’s lens before, I’ve only stood down near their base craning my neck upward. Consequently, this vantage point was giving me a completely new perspective, with the deep blue ocean stretching for miles beyond us.
Another paved path continued around a bend leading down to front of the lighthouse, and a sign out front revealed the free tours of the lighthouse’s tower were on temporarily canceled due to Covid. Dang it!
Oh well, I suspect it would have been a very, very short tour. The tower was a mere 38 feet tall — the shortest of any lighthouse on the Oregon Coast. Even the squat single-story outbuilding beside it was almost as tall as the light’s tower.
Back up atop the headland, I started searching for the trail that would take me south once again. I knew it went past the famous Octopus Tree, so I just followed the crowds and the signs in that direction.
The Octopus Tree is another famed sitka spruce on Cape Meares. But instead of growing ridiculously tall like the last one I stopped to see, the trunk of this tree was divided at its base. Several smaller trunks seeming to emerge from the main one, curving their way upward like a giant, upside-down octopus.
There’s plenty of debate on what caused this 150-200 year old tree to grow this way. Some scientists claim it was a natural occurrence. While others speculate that early native Americans may have helped to shape it during its early years. Either way, it’s the only tree around with this anomoly, so it definitely stands out from its environment.
Beyond the Octopus Tree, I eventually found the trail that would return me to the OCT once again. Cape Meares had been an interesting diversion this morning, but there were far too many tourists and families milling around in the parking lots and at the picnic tables to keep me here much longer. I was more than ready to head south once again and see what else was in store.
Netarts Bay
The OCT returned to the forest only a briefly before spitting me out a narrow asphalt shoulder once again. This road was part of the scenic Three Capes Scenic Loop, a 40-mile driving and cycling route that along the Tillamook Coast.
The three capes are: Cape Meares (which I’d just visited), Cape Lookout (which I’d pass sometime later today), and Cape Kiwanda (one of tomorrow’s destinations).
This scenic driving and bicycling loop hugs the coastline, while Highway 101 remains inland from Tillamook Bay to Pacific City. Thus, any roadwalking I have to do between now and tomorrow morning will be on smaller coastal roads instead of busy Highway 101. And hopefully, that will mean fewer logging trucks and RVs trying to run me down.
This first roadwalk was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday morning thanks to all the summer tourist traffic heading out to Cape Meares. But at least it was relatively short. Once I got to the small town of Oceanside, I was able to head back to the beach for a few more miles of easy, flat beach hiking.
I barely seemed to find my rhythm on the supple beach though before I found myself at the mouth of Netarts Bay. I could see a sandy spit on the opposite side of the bay, but it was at least a quarter mile away and the water was way to too deep and choppy to ford.
I pulled out my tide table, and learned that low tide was at 11:15 am today. Dang it. This was about as low as I could expect the water it to get today, and the bay was well beyond my ability to cross on foot.
There was really no way to make it all the way across to Netarts Spit without a boat to shuttle me over, yet there weren’t any recreational or fishing boats nearby. So, with no other choice available, I’d have to return to the paved road (again) and detour around Netarts Bay.
That would mean another 6.5 miles of roadwalking until Cape Lookout State Park. But at least it wasn’t a significantly longer distance to take this detour around Netarts Bay. This basin wasn’t super wide like Nehalem Bay or Tillamook Bay, but I’d rather be walking south along the sandy spit next to the ocean than on the road inland.
The bigger issue for me to deal with now was the glaring sunshine reflecting off the black asphalt. The mid-day sun was beating overheat now. So without the benefit of the ocean breeze or any clouds in the sky, it felt unbearably hot – even though it was probably only in the mid-60s.
Consequently, I found myself drawn over to the southbound lane of the highway (walking with traffic instead of against it) just because there was some tree shade on that side of the road. Luckily, there were very few cars or trucks on the road, so I wasn’t overly worried about my safety. I had plenty of time to see and hear them coming out here.
As I passed one of the parking areas beside the bay, I noticed a port-a-potty and hand washing station with a fancy wooden shed built around them. I suspect the structure was there to make sure the seasonal storms didn’t push the port-a-potty over creating a giant mess.
I briefly considered stopping there to relieve myself, but then something gave me pause.
A small white sign was posted near the top of the structure informing people that the area was under video surveillance. Seriously? Do the Netarts cops not have enough to do? Are they now surveilling desolate port-a-potties?
That was too creepy for me, so I kept walking. I’d rather hold it and find somewhere to pee in the woods, thank you.
When I made it to the Whiskey Creek Fish Hatchery around 2:30 pm, I was desperately ready for a break. I was 13 miles into the day, but tired and overheating. It was time to eat lunch and there were some nice looking shade at the fish hatchery where I could air out my feet and sprawl out on the grass for an hour.
While eating, I decided to take some time to review tonight’s camping options. I’d like to set up camp around 20 miles today, but who knows if that was realistic. Just like all my prior days on the OCT, the legal camping options were limited and uncertain.
There were only two places ahead that were 100% sure to have somewhere to camp. I could stop at the hiker-bike camp at Cape Lookout State Park near the 15-mile mark for the day. Or I could try for some beach camping near Sand Lake, which would mean a 25-mile day.
What lay in between those two destinations was anyone’s guess. Hopefully, I’d get to camp on the beach tonight, and have a real OCT experience. But I wasn’t holding my breath.
Cape lookout
After a short break, I set out off toward Cape Lookout State Park. I was running low on water, and I knew they’d have plenty of spigots at the park’s campground. I just needed to stick to the shade the best I could this afternoon and keep walking.
Unfortunately, spending the day walking on the road’s shoulder meant experiencing less wildlife of this stretch of the route. No seagulls, snowy plovers, or crabs today. Though I did see an impressively long black snake warming itself on the blacktop, and I nearly stepped on a very dead, but colorful, Wilson’s Warbler laying on the shoulder of the road too.
When I finally arrived at Cape Lookout State Park at the end of more than two hours of roadwalking, a long line of cars and truck with trailers were idling as the front gate waiting to check into the campground. A park ranger was busy patiently giving his spiel about the park’s rules, writing out parking passes, and give directions to the campground.
Was this hiker-biker camp where I wanted to stay tonight? I’d wait until the traffic died down a bit before making my decision. In the meantime, I made my way over to a water spigot in the shade, and took a load off while rehydrating.
As I rested on my pack watching the exchange with the ranger repeat itself with every car over and over again, I suddenly remembered something one of my hiking friends on the Appalachian Trail once said. He insisted that no matter how much he loved the outdoors, he could never be a park ranger.
Being a frontcountry rangers wasn’t a glamorous job, he said. They were mostly forced to be custodians and cashiers. The rangers collect the park fees, clean the bathrooms, and empty the trash cans. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they had to act like people’s mothers and tell them to stop making noise during quiet hours or urge them go to bed when they were being drunk and rowdy. That assessment of the job, whether accurate or not, always stuck with me.
After watching car after car make its way into the park and head to the campground, I decided Cape Lookout State Park was too busy for my liking. It was still only 4 pm and I had several hours of daylight left.
I’d hike on and find somewhere else to camp tonight. But first I needed to get up and over Cape Lookout, the tall forested headland that stood to the south.
Unfortunately for me though, the North Cape Trail that ran from the edge of the state park campground up to the apex of Cape Lookout was closed due to storm damage. Just like the two prior closures at Osawld West State Park, there were too many downed trees from the 2020 storm blocking the trail. It was impassible and dangerous.
I’d have to head back out to the road I’d walked in on, and hike to the top of Cape Lookout on pavement instead. Ugh!
This next stretch wasn’t going to be easy, flat roadwalking either. It was 1000 feet of vertical gain from the park up to the top of Cape Lookout. The route up would be tiring and boring.
As I worked my way up the highway, the hills beside next me look like they had been completely harvested. All that remained were some wild bushes and hundreds of tree stumps. The stumps were all white, so it’s likely there’d been a forest fire here years ago.
About halfway up to the top of Cape Lookout, I made it to Anderson’s Overlook – a small car pull-out where drivers could stop and look north toward the beach on Netarts Spit on the outside of the bay.
It was a bit bittersweet to see how beautiful it was. If I had been able to find a boat ride across Netarts Bay, I would have gotten to walk along that gorgeous 5-mile sandy strip instead of the miles upon miles of boring roadwalking I had to endure today.
All the asphalt beneath my feet were bringing about another negative side effect too. My Altra Lone Peak trail shoes were giving me blisters on the balls of my feet. There just didn’t seem to be enough cushioning in them for this thru-hike.
Maybe if I was only hiking 2-3 miles at a time on the road’s shoulder, they would be perfectly fine. But I’d spent close to 10 miles roadwalking thus far today! And now I had several tender hot spots I needed to tape up along with one fully formed blister that needing tending also.
After looking around for somewhere safe, where I wouldn’t get run over by any cars pulling into the overlook, I found the ideal spot. A small concrete memorial plaque sat flush with the ground. The stone’s engraving announced that I was sitting on Gammon Launch, named for Dick Gammon, a pioneering hang gliding pilot.
Dick Gammon was quite the daredevil out here on the Oregon Coast. He launched his hang glider from a guardrail up here in the 1983 and rode the coastal winds until he landed in the state park below. This earned him a ticket from local law enforcement, so instead of finding a new launching spot, he petitioned Tillamook County to allow hang gliders to continue to leap from this ideal location!
After seeing the dates on the marker, I morbidly wondered whether it was placed here because he died in some sort of subsequent hang gliding accident. I did the mental math and realized he only lived to be 66.
Was I sitting on some sort a tragic memorial while I bandaged up my feet?
As it turns out, I wasn’t committing a faux-pas. Gammon died from color cancer in 2009. But since this was one of his favorite spots to hang glide from, it was a fitting place for a memorial marker of his adventurous life.
Hiking again
After two more miles of walking uphill on the shoulder of the road, I finally reached the top of Cape Lookout and grateful to finally be able to return to the soft dirt once again. The remainder of my day would be on a real trail as it wound its way down the back side of Cape Lookout and the sandy beaches to the south.
The dirt trail here seemed to be completely undamaged by last year’s storm, and the forest provided some much needed shade from the sun, which was now low enough in the sky that it seemed horizontal with me.
Several clear, cold streams of water ran down the mountain and under the trail, and I caught intermittent glimpses of the beach down below and headlands when I looked west. There was even a bench sitting next to the trail at one scenic spot, which I decided was the perfect place to sit and stare out at the ocean while I ate a late afternoon snack.
After my short break, the trail dove down a series of switchbacks toward sea level again. It was hard of the knees, and I slowed my pace to gather several handfuls of some giant salmonberries from the bushes lining the trail.
Salmonberries aren’t my favorite of the Pacific Northwest berries. Their flavor is much subtler and less sweet than raspberries, blackberries, loganberries, or marionberries. But it’s still June – very early in the coast’s berry season – so salmonberries are better than no berries, right?
When I arrived at sandy beach below the cape, it was near high tide. The packed sand that I conveniently trod on this morning — during low tide — was now completely underneath the crashing waves. All that was left behind at this time of day was the soft, dry beach sand.
As I walked south, the sand constantly shifted under my feet giving my calves a real workout. Plus the entire area above the water’s edge seemed to be sloped at a 45-degree angle, pushing even more stress on my ankles.
I toyed with just setting my tent up here on the beach and stealth camping for the night instead of walking on. But the wind was blowing hard, and I seriously doubted my single-walled trekking pole tent would stay up for long. I needed to find some firmer ground first.
Camp Merriwether, a local Boy Scout Camp, was tucked into the forest just above the beach. Even though it didn’t seem to be operating for the season yet, I couldn’t set my tent up there. It was private property and I needed to respect that.
Sand Lake
As I continued along the beach, the early evening wind seemed to be blowing sideways from the ocean to the shore and was loud enough that I couldn’t hear a thing. So, I just pulled the hood of my sun shirt over over my head to keep my ears warm, and trudged south through the sand.
I was already at the 21-mile mark for the day and was ready to stop at the first place I could set up my tent without the wind blowing it down. I had enough water to get me through the night. Anywhere on the beach would do if I could just find some sort of windbreak.
As I trudged south beyond the Boy Scout camp, the forest receded, and the dunes to my left got bigger and softer. There was no good spot to to pitch my tent out here. And then my situation got even worse.
Ahead of me on the dunes, there were people racing on the sand with their All-Terrain Vehicles (ATV), Off-Highway Vehicles (OVHs), and even a few dune buggies!
I knew the Sand Beach campground (a primitive US Forest Service campground) was a few miles ahead near the north edge of Sand Lake. But I just assumed it was a car camping spot – like Cape Lookout State Park had been.
Apparently I was wrong. The attraction at Sand Beach wasn’t the lake or the ocean. It was the sand dunes. And that meant tons of ATVs and OHVs racing up and over them as 20+ mph. Setting up a tent anywhere around here would be akin to asking to get run over.
No thanks. I’ll just keep walking.
Off to my right there were people racing out in the ocean too. Only they weren’t on ATVs. These folks were riding the waves on a jet ski and they didn’t seem to care how close to shore they got.
I don’t know how sharply the beach drops off here, but it just seemed like they should have been a bit further out if they didn’t want to get beached on that thing!
At this point, I’d pretty much resigned myself to walking all the way down to Sand Lake – an estuary where Sand Creek meet the Pacific Ocean. Worse case scenario, I’d pay for a campsite at the USFS campground there. But I was still going to keep an eye out for a stealth spot nonetheless.
I’m early 90 miles into the OCT and I haven’t done any beach camping out here yet. My first night was up at the log cabins at the hiker camp on Tillamook Head. My second night was the hiker-biker camp at Nehalem State Park. My third night would have been at Barview Jetty if we’d stayed in our campsite instead of heading home to try dry out for a few hours.
So I was looking forward to a stealth beach site already!! I just needed to find something sheltered a bit from the strong wind. Plus, it needed to be on solid enough ground that I could actually pitch my tent. And preferably in a spot where I didn’t risk getting run over by a rogue ATV! Was all that too much to ask for?
As I made my way toward the end of the beach before the mouth of Sand Lake, the ATVs activity seemed to cease completely. A large sign proclaimed it was the end of the open area, and “motor vehicles were prohibited beyond this point.”
But immediately on the opposite side of that sign, the dunes were roped off and a second sign stood before me. I was back in a snowy plover nesting area, where stealth camping was completely off-limits. There was literally only a few feet between the ATV area and the snowy plover area!
Oh, for crying out loud! Why is finding a spot to camp so damn hard out here??
As I curved around the dunes that formed the mouth of Sand Lake, I finally found my camp spot though. There were some flat spots in the woodline only a few dozen yards outside the roped off area. The sand was firm and moist here, and most importantly, it was sheltered from the wind.
As an added bonus, just ahead, a short few hundred yards away, I could see Fisherman’s Day Use Area – with a water spigot, pit toilet, and even a trash dumpster. I finally got my stealth spot – and with perks! So I set up camp and made a late dinner. It was after 7 pm and I was tired from another long day on the OCT.
As I crawled into my tent after eating, I was serenaded to sleep by chirps of the snowy plowers and the ATVs gunning their engines in the nearby on their way out to the dunes for their night rides.
Highlights
- Cape Meares was chock full of sights to enjoy, from my detour to see the largest sitka spruce in the state, to the Cape Meares lighthouse and all the fantastic views beyond.
- Finding salmonberries to enjoy as an early evening snack. I wish they were wild blackberries, but I’m still several weeks from that being a reality.
Challenges
- Today included much more roadwalking than I expected. I really wish I’d been able to flag down a boat to shuttle me across Netarts Bay so I could have walked the 5-mile beach instead.
- Discovering the North Cape trail was closed from storm damage this afternoon was a blow to my morale. Sigh. More roadwalking and a 1000-foot vertical climb.
- Unfortunately, my trail shoes don’t seemed well-suited for the OCT. I’m less than a quarter of the way into this thru-hike and the balls of my feet are completely thrashed.