August 14, 2019.
On our last full day of camping at
Carl G Washburne SP, we hiked a loop trail that begins at the campground. Our hike began with the Valley Trail which wanders through the woods for almost 1.5 miles parallel to highway 101. There are a couple of meadows which Elk are known to visit, but none were sighted on our hike. Eventually the trail intersects and crosses Highway 101 which can make for an interesting game of
Frogger. Once across we headed south and the trail (part of the
Oregon Coast Trail) became the
Heceta Head Lighthouse Trail. As with most coastal hikes in Oregon, our trail went up and down and had lots of switchbacks as it navigates the Oregon Coast terrain. This section also had lots of deep ruts and plenty of wooden steps, mostly to help with erosion, that created an additional challenge. In all there were about 100 steps up heading out to the lighthouse and thus 100 more steps down on the return trip. Made working out on a
StairMaster seem like a piece of cake. We also ran into clouds/fog for the first time on our hikes which translated to raindrops when the wind would blow the trees. After about 1.5 miles we arrived at the Heceta Head Lighthouse and took time to enjoy the view of lighthouse, Devil's Elbow rock, the coast, and we walked to and visited the gift shop. When we headed out we retraced our hike along the Heceta Head Lighthouse Trail but instead of returning on the Valley Trail, we made a left and took the short Hobbit Beach Trail down to the beach and then hiked along the beach till we reached the State Park beach access trail. In all our loop was 7.6 miles and over our 4 night stay at Carl G Washburne SP we were able to hike just over 35 miles. Now we'll have to go back to work to rest up.
Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol
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| Time for another hike! |
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| Like most Oregon Coast Hikes there are uphills and downhills with plenty of ferns! |
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| One of our ocean viewpoints without a view today |
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| Heceta Head Lighthouse finally comes into view from the trail. |
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| Heceta Head Lighthouse |
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| A thistle still in bloom along the coast |
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| View of Devil's Elbow from the lighthouse |
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| View of return hike with clouds/fog along the Oregon Coast Trail |
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| This log was here when we hiked this trail in 2010, just aged a little bit like us. |
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| Last junction as we head down to Hobbit Beach and return to camp |
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