Author: keely

Nehalem Bay State Park

 
Scenes from our early walk down to the beach at Nehalem Bay State Park.


The tent camping at this park is ho-hum (lots of people around and nothing too terribly special or secluded about the campsites), but the yurts look awesome. We reserved too late to get a yurt, they were all full up. You can also camp with your horse here, if you are lucky enough to be able to do such things. The park has a 1.75 mile walking trail and recreational activities also include crabbing and fishing. It’s just about 15 minutes or so from Oswald West State Park, whose campsites have been closed since 2009, and where there are some great hiking opportunities.

Oswald West State Park


So this is one of the best places ever.

We never would have gone to this place, either, if it hadn’t have been for Facebook. Both of us “like” National Geographic on FB, and they post a Picture of the Day. One day, the photo captivated both of us, and we were like, we should go here! So I looked it up, and figured out how we could make that happen on this trip.
We tried to guess as to where the exact spot was where they took the photo but I am not sure we figured it out. Maybe this was it:

Or slightly south of this along the trail, I dunno. What I do know is that there ARE in fact bald eagles here, I saw one fly over my head while J was taking a photo of what we think was an immature one being harassed by a seagull. I was also watching for whales here, they say this is a good spot for that, although I think it may have been the wrong season.
We couldn’t decide what to do first. We started on one trail, but it seemed to be harder than we anticipated, so we went back to this spot here and tooled around for a while. Then, we drove up the road, and found a place to start on the same trail we originally started on, but from the other direction. This one went up Neahkahnie Mountain, and I was not in the mood for going all the way to the top. I thought we were going to turn around after the first cache in the series on the way up, but J kept pushing me to continue to the next, and then, turns out, I was the one who wanted to make it all the way to the summit (which was just right up there!) and he thought it was too dangerous, making us turn around right before the very last cache, after all that! And, we didn’t bother trying to look for the lost Spanish treasure up there, being too busy finding pieces of paper in decon containers to sign our names to.
Here is the view of the summit, the last 160 ft of it he didn’t think we should go up:

It’s a good thing, though, because what you can’t see from this image is that it was really rocky and kind of rough along the trail near the top, and that it was starting to get dark. It took us like an hour to get to the top, but it only took us thirty minutes to get down, or something like that. The sun was going down and it was getting dark just as we reached our parking spot. Here is the view going down the trail. This also could have been where the NG photo was taken:

And a view from halfway up the trail:

There are a lot of trails here worth hiking. After this, we tooled around as the sun went down, and then headed over to this Great Northern Garlic Company. It is fantastic. If you are ever in the area, you really should go there. It was after closing time, but the owner didn’t mind us huddling up around one of the table fires and ordering her last Dungeness crab, as well as two Crater Lake root beers and a plate of hummus and pita bread. It was so delicious, especially after that hike.
After this, we went back to our tent at the Nehalem Bay State Park (no camping in Oswald West), and went to to sleep with the faint sound of coyotes yipping and surf breaking along the beach that was further away than it sounded, but not too far for us to stroll down there at dawn and watch the Oregon coast greet the day. This whole area was the highlight of the trip, for sure.
Another view from the top of the trail, on the way down:

Oregon Travels: Tillamook

After Bridal Veil Falls, we had continued along the Crown Point Scenic Highway that runs parallel to I-84 on the south side of the highway.  We stopped at Multnomah Falls and did the climb up to the Benson Bridge, took some pictures, and checked out the gift shop. We didn’t do the traditional caches there because for some reason I did not load them, so we will have to come back someday.  We were going to check out Oneonta Gorge after that, but we actually just weren’t in the mood, what with the argument earlier and being hungry and all. So we pointed the car west and headed towards Portland, and food, and other fun caches.

There was one cache in Portland that we really wanted to get, but turns out it is in a location that is not accessible on Sundays.  Darn!  It was around the corner from a Taco Time where we could have lunch (max amount of Taco Timing when we are in the Pac Northwest!) and a really, really cute TB hotel (Shelrik’s Happy Cache Inn).  Here is a picture of the inside of it:

After this, we realized we needed to make some time in order to reach the night’s destination in time. To get to the coast, we had to go through Tillamook State Forest. Maybe it was because I was wearing these sunglasses that make the world a better place (brand name: Costa’s: seriously the best sunglasses ever), but Tillamook was so incredibly beautiful. We didn’t stop a LOT, and we ended up not going for the grandfather cacvhe out here in the interest of time, but we did stop a few times for caches and general exploring, including finding this hidden waterfall due to a cache. Here are some of the photos from out there. Definitely a place worth exploring more in the future:

In my opinion, this forest was one of the highlights of this trip. It is 364,000 acres located just 40 miles west of Portland along Hwy 6. You should check it out if you are ever in Portland!
After this, we reached the actualy coastal town of Tillamook, where the cheese is made. I had to stop at the creamery. I ended up buying this cutting board and knife set and two blocks of cheese, summer sausages, and crackers that we ended up eating off of for the rest of our trip.
Finally, we made it to Nehalem Bay State Park, our campsite for the night, and base of operations for our hike into Oswald West State Park, which was so cool it deserves its own post. Next time I have computer time, I will tell and show you all about this jewel of the Oregon Coast.

Bridal Veil Falls

When we left Sandy the morning after finding those old caches, our first mission was to head for some scenic waterfalls along I-84 heading east, with the intent to double back around at some point and head west towards the coast.

The first of the waterfalls, and accompanying caches, we were after was Bridal Veil Falls.  The approach to this one got us into a huge argument that will probably live in infamy in our relationship.

Our first road trip together, there were no fights.  We were still in the Love Bubble I guess, and now we have gotten to the point where we can really drive each other crazy.  In this case, there was an argument over where to park, which direction we needed to start heading down the trail on, and what was the appropriate solution to some freaking out the GPS was doing.  In the end, we did it Jason’s way, and he turned out to be right.  Likely, he will tell you he is always right.

I almost didn’t even want to walk down the trail with him.  In the end, though, the beauty of the waterfall and the flora surrounding it was therapeutic, and I was in a much better mood coming back up the trail back to parking.  Especially after we found the cache (and turns out he was right about where it was hidden, too).  Here are some photos.  Cache is GC1A224, Bridal Veil Silver.