Sunday June 18, 13.4mi/21.6km
Cape Lookout State Park (86.6/20ft) to Pacific City (100.0/23ft) (OR)
Because I started hiking at 4:45am, the beach was still pretty dark when I left the campground.
It had rained pretty hard overnight, and it looked like it was threatening to rain again, but it held off for most of the morning. I love the smell of a forest after a recent rainstorm.
The trail climbed up to a short headland and I had a pretty good view of the ocean from above.
In theory this trail was closed due to “storm damage” but I didn’t see any fallen trees and even the bridge looked brand new.
As I descended from the other side of the headland, I started to see the sunrise creep into the treetops. Cool!
I could see Cape Lookout as I descended the trail back down to the beach.
In some places the trail was a little overgrown, but mostly it was a very nicely maintained trail through a mature forest.
By 6am I was back down to the beach, and I had a quick 4 miles to walk to get to the crossing of Sand Lake outlet. The outlet can only be crossed at low tide, which today occurred at 7:30am, hence the super early starting time today.
The view behind me to Cape Lookout got better as the sun came up.
Usually the little sea critters will move when I walk down the beach, but this crab stayed still.
Then the clouds started to build and the sky got darker…
I could tell it was raining out over the ocean, when this rainbow appeared.
In some places the sand on the beach had a really cool texture, I think it must be shaped by the wind.
At 7:45am I arrived at Sand Lake outlet, and crossed it easily. At 15 minutes after low tide it was only knee deep.
I had another couple hours of hiking on the beach, and the sky ahead of me looked clear.
The sky behind me, however, looked very angry.
Pretty soon those clouds caught up to me, and it rained pretty hard for 30 minutes. Then the rain tapered off and I could see cape Kiwanda in the distance.
It was an easy climb over the short sandy headland, it was basically just a very tall sand dune.
I dropped down the other side, and it was full of surfers.
I had a mile of walking on the beach and I saw tons of surfers out despite the terrible weather. Or maybe the terrible weather makes the waves better? I’m not sure.
At 10am I turned off the beach and went into Pacific City, which is the route of the Oregon Coast Trail. I stopped into Meg’s cafe to have a third breakfast, which of course is the most important breakfast.
I was kinda hoping to run into a bigfoot in the bathroom.
While I was waiting for my food, I checked the weather forecast and the rest of today looked very wet and cold (55F/13C). And tonight looked the same. So I got a room at the local Anchorage motel.
They gave me a small discount since I was a hiker, which was very nice and definitely unexpected. The room was surprisingly fancy.
Even the bathroom had this fancy sink, kinda more like an old timey fountain.
I checked out what was on TV, and because it was Father’s Day, they were running an all-day Baywatch Marathon. Ha!
After I unpacked and showered, I left to do my grocery resupply, but on the way I stopped and got some ice cream of course.
Chester’s market was a half mile away but a pretty easy walk through some quiet neighborhoods. I bought 3 days’ worth of food to get me to the next big town of Newport, 60 miles away.
On the walk back I cut through a park and saw this funny sign. “cheese, trees, and ocean breeze”
Also apparently there is a small airstrip running right through the middle of the town of Pacific City!
It would be shocking to be walking along the sidewalk and see a small plane right above you, haha. I stopped at a little restaurant called Beach Wok, and ate probably the most delicious Pad Thai I’ve ever had. With all my chores done, I went back to my motel room and caught up on my internet stuff before falling asleep early, since I had been awake at 4am today.