Touring the Clatsop area

Seeing the Sights

Oregon's unusually rainy season causing flooding and landslides has been missing us at Fort Stevens and hanging south of us. Most of our first two weeks were dry except short periods of mist or rain in the mornings. This gave us plenty of time to get out and enjoy our walks and bike rides. People don't worry about the rain here. They just make sure their clothes are adequate. Waterproof boots are a good things, tennis shoes not so much.

We have explored some interesting places on our plentiful time off and learn a thing or two along the way.

Columbia River Maritime Museum

Stories of the legendary Columbia River Bar, one of the most dangerous passages in the world, are in the Columbia River Maritime Museum.  We learned about the extreme forces at work along the Columbia River Bar with waves that can exceed 40 feet in height during the most severe winter storms.

Our volunteer Oregon State Park Pass provides us free admission to several museums even if it is a private museum like the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

We had never heard of a lighthouse ship until we boarded the Columbia which is part of the museum but on the river.

In 1892 the Columbia River Lightship Station became the first active lightship on the west coast. A wooden-hulled vessel housed two coal-fired boilers, which produced steam for a twelve-inch fog whistle. Three oil lamp lenses, used to alert vessels at night, topped the ship's two masts. The ship had no engine for propulsion, but had sails in case the anchor chain, which held the vessel at a position roughly five miles west of the Columbia River's mouth, broke.

As we boarded the Lightship, the docent happened to be retired from the Coast Guard. We visited with him about his service and the ship. He talked a bit about the jetties and their effect on the river and shipping.

The Coast Guard has a strong presence with ships based in Astoria. The helicopters that we hear combing the beaches are in Warrenton on this side of the bridge from Astoria. 

Two years after being ripped away by the Japanese tsunami of 2011, this 20 foot fishing boat floated upright from the Japanese island of Honshu to the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. The owner of the 20-foot boat was contacted and said he did not want the vessel to be returned. Instead, he donated the boat to the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

We like to watch from the riverwalk or a restaurant as the tugboats guided the barges up the river. Astoria and Longview only have one port each, leaving the barges lined up on the river awaiting their turn to load or unload. Often we can see 10-12 within view anchored.

Blue Scorcher Bakery and Café turned out to be a favorite for us when we ventured into Astoria. But the food trucks have some amazing looking food that we will have to try next time we return to town.

Riding 20 miles on the backroads on our bikes through the farm land was a great way to spend a morning.

It is good to have warm bike clothes on damp mornings.

Fort Clatsop

Fort Clatsop was the winter encampment for Lewis and Clark's Unit in 1806. Daily costumed programs and activities are scheduled during the summer months. We enjoyed the quiet morning as we walked around the fort replica and museum before anyone else arrived.

The river trail was a nice 2 mile walk along the river as we watched the river otters and water fowl.

Netul River

Salt Works

It doesn't take long as we drive into Seaside to understand that it is a frequently visited tourist town. The long boardwalk along the ocean is beautiful. But the narrow streets make driving in our big truck tricky. Parking and walking through the downtown is a best bet. I can't imagine how busy it must be in the summer.

While in Seaside, we made a 15 minute stop at the mini National Park Salt Works, short but an important part of the Lewis and Clark history.

Much of the Lewis and Clark Corps' stay on the North Coast was spent securing food for the winter and provisions for the trip home. By the time they reached the lower Columbia River region, they had run out of valuable salt for seasoning food and preserving meat.

Meat preservation was a matter of life or death for the Corps. Spoiled elk meat could make the Corps sick, and without meat for the return home, weakened with hunger.

To make salt, the Corps had to find rocks to build a furnace, wood to burn, ocean water to boil, fresh water to drink and game animals. Nearby rivers weren't salty enough, but a site 15 miles southwest of Fort Clatsop proved perfect. 

Five men traveled to the beach site, built the camp and set five kettles to boiling, 24 hours a day, to produce salt, 3 ½ bushels or about 28 gallons of "Excellent, fine, strong & white" salt.

South Jetty

One of our hikes was along the South Jetty where the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean meet. It was a calm day and the waves were still pretty choppy. In the distance, we could see the ships heading out to sea. No whales today.

Our campsite is behind a hill a mile from the beach is surrounded by trees and bushes which cuts down on the wind. We can hear the rough surf and wind on the ocean from our home when it is windy. A father told us that the wind on the beach was so strong that he had to hang onto his son so he wouldn't blow away.

In our staff meetings, (yes, we have meetings but they provide cheesecake) they keep reminding us about tsunamis and what we do if we feel an earthquake. Head for the hills. The tsunami alarm in Warrenton is a horn on the top of a truck that also sounds its horn when the local high school football team scores a touch down. But no one was sure if that is still protocol since the guy that drives it may have died.  hmmmm. Maybe a guy with a lantern on a horse or elk is the new alarm. We will go with feel an earthquake, run.

The host ranger arranged for us to arrive March 28th and provided us with a campsite so we could rest up before beginning our duties, another unexpected benefit. Our time at Fort Stevens is passing quickly as we near our halfway point. We are glad we jumped in and gave this volunteering a shot. Starting in the slow season was a good idea also. The weekends get busy but that's not a bad thing. By Sunday afternoon, we are back to just a few campers scattered about. I am sure that is going to change soon with the Crab and Wine Festival in Astoria at the end of April. We have been warned.

Our first host job

Learning the ropes

 

We have contemplated camp hosting or volunteering at state parks for quite a while. Last summer on our tour of Oregon, we took a closer look at the parks, job descriptions and opportunities. We decided to sign up at several different parks in different positions. The positions fill early but often have cancellations. A few things we look at when choosing a park was how far the grocery stores were, how close  hiking is and the bike riding routes available.

Some of the benefits of hosting in Oregon State Parks is staying in a great park for a month or more without charge, free nights in route and free entry into local museums. Plus we get to meet nice people and feel like we are contributing in a good way.

Things were pretty quiet even with spring breaks in Oregon and Washington.

 

 

Our first position is Fort Stevens State Park located on the northwest corner of Oregon where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.  Our job is to sell firewood 5 days a week from 4-8pm. Our trailer is right next to the wood bin. On slow days, which is most of April except the weekends, we put out the sign to check with the hosts in site H1, our site. We just enjoy the rest of the day.

Western Skunk Cabbage

This eagle was huge sitting high in a tree along the river.

The 4200 acres of this state park is larger than we had realized with over 500 campsites, making it the largest in the western US. It is well laid out and everyone has plenty of room. This takes a lot of different types of camp hosts. Right now there are only 12 sites with host but goes up to 25 in the busy season. Some people's jobs are to ride around or walk and pick up trash and be available to answer people's questions. It is much about having an official presence on each loop.  

We like watching the pilots board the large ships as they enter the Columbia River and the tug boats that pull them along.

 Initially constructed during the Civil War, Fort Stevens remained active through World War II. Sea mines were used as a means to defend the river’s mouth from enemy intrusion. The mines were attached to the bottom of the river by cables, then detonated by remote control from an on-base switchboard. Everything associated with the mines, with the exception of the explosives, were kept within the Mine Cable Storeroom.

 

The miles of bike trails are well maintained and wind all through the woods in the park and are well used by the families. Our morning walk to the shipwreck beach is one mile each way and the trail around the Coffinbury Lake is 2 miles around.  We stopped at the lake on our return walk from the ocean to watch the Osprey diving into the lake and pull out a fish.

 

Some days, we ride our bikes the 4 miles to the historic area and along the river's jetty. There are tours both in an Army truck and underground which we can take for free as volunteers.

We like being right near three towns making grocery shopping easy and less time consuming.

We do get a bar or two of Verizon which is fine most of the time for us. But get a very cool Blues station which we don't find very often in our travels. This station features artists we haven't heard in ages.

The Peter Iredale was a 19th century, 4-masted steel ship that ran aground in 1906 on the Clatsop Spit. Today it is considered one of the most accessible shipwrecks of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

 

Kites were flying high during spring break.

We wake to the sound of fog horns of the ships going up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean in the morning marine layer.  At night we are lulled to sleep by bullfrogs that can get pretty loud at times. We like it.

 

Lighthouses and Tidepooling

Driving up the Coast 

Port Orford

Last spring we visited the small port town of Port Orford  to ride our bikes on the Wild River Scenic Bikeway. Our first two days of our return visit were sunny, but the third was cold and raining. We pulled out our books and settled in. We usually like to get outside and walk to get in our 10,000 steps a day despite the weather. Not this day. I bet even the whales that are heading north to Alaska took a detour.

This dog's owner joined us on our morning walk on the beach. We would have missed the ship wreck that had been mostly covered in sand if he hadn't pointed it out.

Funny little rock on the beach

We are always learning something new in our travels. While driving along the ocean, we would stop to walk along the beach.  We noticed a couple digging along the surf in the sand and (Deb AKA "The Stalker") had to find out what they were doing. He would dig in the sand and toss it across the beach looking for sand crabs to be used as bait for catching ocean perch. The sand crabs are very fast at disappearing back into the sand. No razor clamming in the area right now as they are toxic.

 No bigger than a thumb, a sand crab spends most of its time buried in shifting sand. Sand crabs feed in the swash zone—an area of breaking waves. As the swash zone moves up and down the beach with the tide, so do sand crabs. surfperch's diet is 90% sand crabs. Surf fishermen use sand crabs as bait.




More fishermen digging for sand crabs

 At Cape Blanco Lighthouse, hiking along the bluff as the sun glistened waves crashed, we watched for whales in the distance. Mostly we would just see their blow holes spouting in the distance.

Bandon, Oregon

While staying in Port Orford, we were  only 26 miles from the cute touristy town of Bandon. This summer we will be spending a month at Bullards Beach State Park volunteering and decided to check out the town which is across the Coquille River from the state park.



Coquille Lighthouse at the mouth of the Coquille River.

The fisherman on the Coquille River were giving us tips on catching Dungeness Crabs at high tide. (Yep, the stalker was at it again) They filled the trap's bait box with old fish parts and chicken, put it in the river for 30 minutes and out came crab. They kept the males 6 inches and larger and returned the rest. 

Face Rock Beach was another Whales Spoken Here site.

Face Rock had hundreds of birds nesting and a few whales spouting in the distance. I guess you can probably tell that our whale watching was less than we expected. But we did see one breach.

Bandon has sand art on Sunday mornings when the tide is low. Then it is washed away with the high tide. 

Bandon-by-the-Sea is the self-proclaimed Cranberry Capital of Oregon. The restaurants and shops have cranberries prepared in many inventive ways. At harvest time, the farmer floods the bogs and uses a reel to loosen the berries from the vines. The floating berries are then skimmed off and loaded onto trucks. The Oceanspray plant is easily accessible on the highway. We may have to check out the cranberry bog tour when we return to Bandon in June.

 Checking the tide tables is a good idea before hiking down into the Punchbowl. Sneaker tides have been known to get a few people when they turn their backs. A lady was recently rescued after not paying attention to the tide. The waves threw up a large log trapping her and breaking 14 ribs landing her in ICU for a week. 

We  had arrived about an hour before low tide and had plenty of time for a little hike.

Oregonians are hardy people that get outdoors no matter that the weather is. We saw surfers in their wetsuits and kids in their shorts and t-shirts playing in the ocean waves when the air temperature was 45 degrees. Made me feel like a wimp in my down coat and gloves walking on the beach. I am ok with that.

One more lighthouse. Heceta Head lighthouse in Newport.

We managed to drive the 101 the entire length of Oregon and northern California and don't see that again in our future. The road was winding and hilly through small towns with speeds usually around 35 mph. The 150 mile drive with plenty of construction stops took quite a few hours. It felt like we were back in the 1920s.  

I think we are good with staying put for the next month in Fort Stevens State Park and exploring this area.