Monday June 19, 14.2mi/22.9km
Pacific City (100.0/23ft) to FS1861 on top of Cascade Head (114.2/1230ft) (OR)
The available camping is awkwardly spaced in this stretch, so I only had 14 miles to hike today. I checked out of the motel at 10am, and walked over to the coffee shop where I redeemed the motel’s free smoothie offer. I chose the pineapple and blackcurrant flavor, which was superb. I finally walked out of town at noon, and the first stretch was on a local road.
After walking for an hour on that road, I turned onto highway 101 South. It was a busy highway, but it also felt safer with the huge wide shoulders. I thought a few groups of bikepackers, one of them said they were writing from Vancouver to San Diego…cool!
It was a scenic roadwalk through some farm fields and dairyland.
After a couple hours of road walking I returned to the beach. As usual the parking lot for the beach access had a bunch of surfers’ cars covered in stickers. This one seemed especially fitting for me.
I always like the beachwalks, they’re easy, relaxing, and there’s no navigation or traffic to think about.
Though sometimes there is a high tide to worry about! The beach got pretty narrow here, and I had to scramble up onto the rocks after a poorly timed wave approached me.
As I neared the end of this section of beach, I saw Proposal Rock come into view.
To get around the next headland, I had to hike inland and go over it using roads and trails. The first road went by a little ice cream truck, which sadly was closed today.
So I had to settle for a pint of ice cream from the general store across the street. As I waited in line I also browsed their book collection.
From there, I was back on highway 101 for a couple miles before turning off into the Siuslaw National Forest.
I could see why this was called the Rainforest Trail, all the vegetation in this entire area was very dense and green.
A tiny part of the trail had been washed out by some winter storms, but it was easy to get around.
I hiked up the trail for an hour and arrived at the top of Cascade Head, and a forest service road. Since it was 6pm, and the next available camping was at least 10 miles away, I put up my tent in the middle of the closed road.
It was probably the only flat and clear spot around for miles, the only downside was the firm gravel underneath. The tent stakes were hard to get into the ground, but eventually I managed and only broke one of them. After I made dinner and got into the tent for the night, I could hear it starting to rain while I was reading my book. Bummer. Hopefully it will stop soon so I can pack up a dry tent in the morning!