August 13, 2019
After hiking double digit miles the previous day, we decided to head to the
Cape Perpetua Scenic Area and hike a couple of short trails that happen to be the only two trails we have not hiked at this beautiful park. If you are ever in the Florence, Yachats, Waldport, or Newport area and have time, don't miss a visit to Cape Perpetua. There are lots of
trails and hikes of varying miles featuring shoreline, incredible views, and old growth forest. Our first hike was a relatively flat "family friendly" 2 mile trek (round trip) from the visitor center along the Giant Spruce Tree trail to see the Giant Spruce Tree. There are many large trees in the park, but this one evidently is the king/queen of them all. The trail followed Cove Creek and it did not take long to arrive at the tree - wow! After taking a few minutes at one of the benches to look at this tree and of course take pictures, we headed back to the visitor center. From there we headed up to and hiked the Discovery Loop which is a 1.4 mile lollipop hike. The first .4 miles is a slight uphill climb followed by a .6 mile loop that has display boards telling you facts and history about old growth forest. There were so many trees and ferns and so very green, it made this a very beautiful hike, even though it was short. So now we have hiked a least a portion of each trail at Cape Perpetua. But we still want to come back and hike here again in the future. Later, we added a few other hikes later to the day back at Washburne SP to bring today's total miles to 7.8. Still one more day of hiking left.
Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol
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| The very green & relatively flat Giant Spruce Tree trail |
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| Looking up at the Giant Spruce Tree |
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| The sign says it all - hope we don't live that long! |
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| One last view of the King/Queen |
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| Carol & Katie at the Giant Spruce Tree base |
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| Ferns everywhere |
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| View of trees along the Discovery Loop trail |
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| One of many very nice display boards telling the history of Old Growth Forests |
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| The Discovery Loop trail |
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| A great place to visit, hike and relax! |
It looks like you had some great days on the coast! We've had the trails at Cape Perpetua on our list for a while now, mainly because it seems to offer some longer loop opportunities. Maybe if we get a sunny spell over the winter, we'll get a chance to do some hiking there. :)
ReplyDeleteYes there are some great combinations for long hikes as we have done a couple of 10+ mile hikes there. Beautiful area
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