Fort to Sea Trail

Blogger is killing me

I am not sure what is going on with Blogger. But as I was jotting some thoughts down, it suddenly published. A couple of posts ago, blogger published while I was doing laundry. I had checked the time stamp to see if I had done it expectantly and saw that I was not even online at the time.

 

I deleted the last post and decided to start over and see if I could do it right this time. Here we go again.

 

  We had been riding our mountain bikes near Fort Clatsop and came upon the Fort to Sea Trail.  Since part of the trail allowed bikes, we rode up to the Overlook 2 miles up the path. 

It was so much fun that we did it twice. We were then committed to trek the entire 6.5 miles of the trail once our curiosity got the best of us.

After Lewis and Clark's Corps built Fort Clatsop, they began exploring the land nearby. The Fort To Sea Trail winds its way through the woods south of Fort Clatsop to Sunset Beach on the Pacific Ocean, covering land that once was home to the Clatsop Indians who helped the Corps.

Oops, we had to turn around. We decided this part was hiking only. Good try Mike.

 

They say you can see the ocean from here. I only saw clouds both times we got to the lookout. We did hear the ocean waves crashing as we hiked down the canyon 5 miles away.

At times it reminded us of hiking in Costa Rica but much cooler.

 

 

Mike is tired of looking at this North Face hiking top I have had for 16 years. It was made from recycled plastic. After one of our hikes, he took me to the Helly Hansen store and instructed me to find a lightweight fleece and buy it. Then he suggested that I get rid of the old fleece that had gotten pretty short on me. As you can see in the picture below, I still have it. When you find a hiking top that keeps you comfortable in lots of conditions, it is hard to let it go. Even if it looks wrong. It is a process and I am working on it.

Enough about my shirt. We reached the top of the Ridge again and took the Kwis Kwis Trail back down which had a lot more ups and downs than the Fort to Sea Trail but not hard at all.

 

 

 
 
We descended through deep woods and reach wooded pasture dotted with small lakes. The wooded pasture leads to the crossing tunnel under U.S. Highway 101 and near Camp Rilea.

 

The coastal mountains on a sunshiny day.

 

 

We did the trail over three days since we weren't sure what to expect in a 10 mile hike with an out and back. The two hiking days were each 5 miles round trip due to the limited parking options. We had to hike some of the section twice but that was just fine. We tried one road marked with a trailhead sign that took us through potholes into a sketchy looking area. We opted against that parking place, made our way back  to the Presbyterian Church which had a sign welcoming hikers except on Sunday mornings. Thanks to them.  

 Some people park a car at each end of the trail and hike through. Others call a cab to meet them at one end and take them back to their cars.

 The trail runs through farm land that is fenced on both sides. It amazed us the amount of cooperation it had to take  between the land owners and forest service for this to get done.

 This stretch of the trail marks the beginning of sandy soil and gentle dunes and leads into beach woods before arriving at the Sunset Beach/Fort to Sea Trail parking lot.

 The 1-mile path to the beach.

 

This well maintained trail had so much diversity to enjoy with lots of birds singing just adding to the experience. The forest service has put a lot of work and money into this great trail.

Back to the not so hard job of selling wood and visiting with campers in the evening.

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.