Tuesday July 4, 9.0mi/14.5km

Harris Beach State Park Campground (398.2/145ft) to Southern Terminus/California Border (406.3/40ft) (OR) +0.9mi to Oregon Welcome Center

I started hiking at 7am, since I wanted to finish by 9:30. There is an 11am bus just 5 miles from the finish, and I wanted to give myself extra time in case the taxi didn’t show up and I had to walk those 5 miles. As expected, it was easy hiking on roads.

I got one last few of the ocean before the fog moved in.

I walked through the little town of Brookings, which seemed really sleepy and quiet.

As I left town I crossed my final river.

There was an hour of walking down a rural road past farm fields, which looked really neat in the dense morning fog.

And then at 9:30am, I arrived at the Southern Terminus and the finish!

It’s at Crissey Field State Park (which is also the Oregon welcome center), they had tons of displays, exhibits, and free brochures to promote state tourism.

One of the staff took my photo with their official finish sign, ha!

I exited the park back to the main highway, and waited by the California border for my taxi.

The taxi arrived on time, and took me to the bus stop 5 miles away.

Oregon has a really good statewide public transit system, and from here I would spend the next 11 hours riding different buses all the way back to Portland, which was like 400 miles away.

I had a 2 hour layover in the city of Grant’s Pass, which for some inexplicable reason had dozens of bear statues scattered throughout the city.

I grabbed an early dinner at Grant’s Pass, since I had just realized it was a holiday today and I probably won’t be able to get food later. From Grant’s Pass I rode the Greyhound bus 6 hours to Portland, where I arrived at 10pm and checked into a nearby hostel. Long day!

The Oregon Coast Trail was a fun experience, and it was really easy hiking. The only difficult part was figuring out camping each night, since there is very limited legal camping, and it’s usually spaced at odd and infrequent intervals. My camping summary is that I stayed at hiker/biker sites for 9 nights, stayed at hostels/motels for 5 nights, and stealth camped for 6 nights. It turned out to be a somewhat expensive trail, since I paid for a place to sleep 75% of the nights. Between the limited camping, and the extensive highway walking, I’m not sure I would recommend it…
but maybe just a few short sections.

I’m sure my next hike (which I start in a week) will be much more wilderness!