South Coast

To get to Oregon’s southern coast we had to briefly leave the Beaver State and dip into northern California. Thus, our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean came not in Oregon but near Crescent City, California.

It was a pretty, but twisty, drive through the coastal mountains where pine forests transitioned to redwood. Soon enough we were back in Oregon and settled into beautiful Harris Beach State Park just a few miles north of the state line.

We hiked down the cliffs to the beach to touch the cold waters of the Pacific. It’s hard to fathom that in just the last five months we have been on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, Lake Superior and, now, we will be spending 10 days on the Pacific Coast; driving the entire length of U.S. 101 in Oregon.

My theory about the Oregon Coast and the 101 is that it will gradually become more “popular”/crowded/developed as we go north. My reasoning is that it is easier to get to the northern areas from the population centers on I-5. The southern coast is not as easy to get to, with just a few east-west roads crossing the coastal mountains from I-5. Further north the roads seem to be more numerous, straighter and go to places where more people live. We’ll know soon enough if my theory holds water.

Saturday we drove north on the 101 to the town of Gold Beach and attended a kitschy, laid back Brew and Art Festival. Fortunately, the beer was a lot better than the art. The entry fee to the festival benefited the local Soroptimist Club, an organization for business and professional women that seems somewhat anachronistic in today’s world. My Mom was an ardent member of the club back in the day; serving in local and state leadership positions. Thus, we were pleased to support the group with our entry fees. I had to wonder, however, what the ladies in Liberty, Missouri would have thought about a Soroptimist Club sponsoring a Brew and Art Festival attended mostly by aging hippies and bikers, and people like us?

On the way to the festival we stopped at some of the myriad turnouts on the 101 to hike short (poorly marked) trails to viewpoints in the state parks that line the coast. In 1966 the state passed laws making the entire shoreline – from the water’s edge to the vegetation line – public property and put the Oregon Parks Department in charge of it. That so-called “Beach Law” has had a profound effect on the state and made 360 miles of continuous coastline free of development and open to the public, primarily through dozens of state parks.

Not surprisingly, the state parks with campgrounds are very popular and we were able to reserve only one night at Harris Beach. So we moved Sunday about 70 miles north to Cape Blanco State Park, the westernmost point in the lower 48 states and home to a beautifully preserved lighthouse.

Unfortunately, most of the time we were at Cape Blanco we could not see the lighthouse. On our first two days on the coast the heavy fog had burned off by noon but that was not the case at Cape Blanco where it was windy, foggy, wet and cold most of the day. After settling in to the campground I jogged and Betsy hiked to the lighthouse. The fog was so thick we had to be standing almost next to the lighthouse to see it. We could hear the waves crashing below, but could not see the ocean.

I was out hiking in the afternoon when the fog suddenly cleared. The change in scenery was pretty startling.

We sat for a while on a bench on the cliffs about 250 feet above the ocean, basking in the warm sun and taking in the views, including the lighthouse. We had visions of watching the sunset later but by then the fog had moved back in.

That was OK though because this night we had a campfire. Oregonians love their campfires and the state park campgrounds are ablaze with them every night. But this was our first fire since leaving Wisconsin and it was a great night for it. As the campfire faded we noticed that stars were starting to show through the trees. So we hiked the short trail back to the cliffs overlooking the beach and were treated to a spectacular display of the Milky Way stretching out over the Pacific. In the distance the beacon from the lighthouse penetrated the dark and we could see the drops of moisture in the air as the light turned, sort of like suspended rain. We have seen dark skies many times in Big Bend and other places in the western deserts, but nothing quite like this.

Most of what is now the park was part of the Hughes Ranch. A husband and wife immigrated separately to Boston in the 1830s, met there, married and moved west; eventually settling on Cape Blanco in 1860 were they prospered and had lots of children. By 1898 they were doing so well with their dairy operation that they were able to build what is still today a very nice house. Monday morning we hiked some beautiful trails through the cold fog to the house and got a tour from the odd volunteer couple manning the place. We hiked back on the trail that crosses through a sheep pasture, packed up and left.

We could have stayed at Cape Blanco because it is a first come, first served campground. However, it is also very remote. We didn’t even have a phone signal. And on Monday the Houston Texans made their season debut on ESPN.

That meant that we had to move to a campground that was closer to a town that would have a sports bar where we could watch the game. Such is the life of an NFL widower.

We drove about 60 miles north on the 101 to the euphemistically-named Sunset Bay State Park (in two days we never saw the sun, much less the sunset) which is near the fishing village of Charleston which happens to have a great sports bar with good food, good beer, great television screens all turned to the Texans game, and solid Wi-Fi that I used to catch up on my reading. The Texans staged a furious fourth-quarter comeback and won on a field goal on the final play of the game. All was right with the world.

The campground at Sunset Bay is probably our least favorite of the state parks so far primarily because the sites are small and close together. There is a real art and science to designing these campgrounds and the better ones use natural vegetation and topography to shield one site from the other; giving at least the illusion of privacy. Sunset Bay is not one of those. Another key factor, we’ve found, is the depth of the site. Depths of 50 to 60 feet allow most trailers and tow vehicles to get well off the road making it seem more private and the campground less crowded. Most of the sites at Sunset Bay are 45 feet or less and we felt fortunate to (barely) get our rig squeezed into our 45-footer.

Taking the time to...

One of the redeeming features of Sunset Bay – or, as we like to call it, Where-The-Sun-Never-Shines Bay – is its proximity to Shore Acres State Park and Cape Arago State Park. These parks are connected to Sunset Bay by road and hiking trail. In the morning we visited them by the former, in the evening by the later. In the early 1900s a local shipbuilding and lumber tycoon – L. J. Simpson – built an estate home and gardens on the cliffs above the ocean. He later fell on hard times, most of the buildings were destroyed or fell into disrepair and he either donated or sold the land to the state. In the 1980s state park landscape architects restored the gardens and it is a beautiful place to visit.

There is another turnout on the road/trail that overlooks some rocky islands and shelves that are a favorite “haul out” place for sea lions and seals. You can hear them barking well before you get to the overlook and it sounds like a dog kennel. Looking through binoculars it took me a while to realize that what I thought was just brown rock was actually a rocky island shore thickly covered with sea lions. It was quite a site.

Supposedly there is a lighthouse on a small island just off the coast here but the fog was so thick we never saw it.

We did drive further south to the Coquille River Lighthouse near Bandon, where the sun was shining, and climbed to the tower for a nice view. Unlike most of the Oregon lighthouses which were put in place to warn of dangers, the Coquille River Light was used to guide ships to the river which was a major port city in the 19^th century.

We did some shopping and checked out the Steve Prefontaine memorial in sunny Coos Bay before returning to Fog Bay for our evening hike and a supper of fresh salmon.