I really meant for this post to be out earlier this week but I just had to knit myself a Santa hat first. I saw this pattern that was created for JK Rollins in the new Red One movie and had to have it. It looks a little gnome-like right now, just need to find the pom pom.
On to the hiking…
After blowing my yearly travel budget this summer, the week of Thanksgiving was going to have to be something closer to home. I typically take the whole week off for a long stretch of 9 vacation days and this year the hubs and I decided to take a road trip to the Southern Oregon Coast.
Why the Southern Oregon Coast? Well, we have taken trips several times before to the Washington Coast during this long week but when I checked the weather forecast, it looked like rain. Nothing wrong with that, we’ve spent days on the coast in the rain more than few times. But I wasn’t feeling it this year.
I started looking at the forecast further down the coast and when I got to Brookings, Oregon it was nothing but sun for the time we had off.
The Southern Oregon Coast it was.
I did some brief planning two days before we left and reserved a night at Eel Creek Campground near Reedsport and another at Humbug Mountain State Park for Thanksgiving night. That left two nights to wing it. And then off we went.
Leaving early on Wednesday morning and driving down I-5, we turned west at Eugene, Oregon and made it to the coast sometime around 1pm. I handed my husband my old Day Hiking Oregon Coast guide book by Bonnie Henderson and told him to find us a hike along the coast before we got to Eel Creek. There would be a familiar hike at the campground but I thought it would be nice to find some new hikes this trip.
My edition is from 2007 (there is an updated 2015 version available) so it is a little bit of a gamble what we might find but it hasn’t steered us wrong yet. The hike we settled on was the Threemile Lake Trail (#1338) just north of Reedsport in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. We opted to make it a 6.5 mile loop by combining with the Tahkenitch Dunes Trail and it was just the perfect mix of coastal rainforest, beach walk and dunes for the beginning of our trip and before sunset.
The trail started out from the seasonally closed Tahkenitch campground and is a part of the Central Coast section of the Oregon Coast Trail.
It runs fairly close to HWY 101 for the first section, splitting about .3 miles in for the lollipop loop. We opted to go clockwise to the lake first.
Being close to the campground the trail was fairly leisurely and we spent a bit of time admiring the macros along the way.
I love coastal forest trails because it isn’t very often you have the intersection of pines and sand dunes.
We came to the southern end of Threemile Lake about 2.7 miles in. It was a little underwhelming and clearly vegetation has grown around the trail that once gave views along its shoreline.
The trail continued around the lake but this would be the only view we would have. I think there was a point we could have turned left at a junction and come back to it but we went right towards the beach instead. Signage was not super clear.
At 3 miles, there was a junction with the Tahkenitch Dunes Trail but we opted to continue .25 miles to the beach and walk that instead to connect with the dunes. I was so happy to find a sunny shoreline!
The beach section was a little over a mile and we had it to ourselves. Well, that is if you don’t count the strange hollow-tubed sea creatures littered along the way. These were a new one to us, it turns out they are sea pickles (pyrosomes) that have washed ashore from the tropical waters recently.
And just when you think you have seen everything that can be discovered while beachcombing!
We started looking for a place to head back up to the forest when we were approaching Tahkenitch Creek and it was clear we would have to scramble a bit up due to erosion of the bank.
There were not a lot of sand dunes as we made out way back on the loop but possibly if we had taken the other route there would have been more.
It was 6.5 miles for our loop when we arrived back at the car after 4pm and we made our way to camp for the night. It was dark and the temperatures had plummeted down into freezing range with the loss of sunshine so no pictures as we quickly ate and got into sleeping bags for the evening. This was my 3rd stay at Eel Creek Campground with the forest service and it makes a quiet stop when most of the campgrounds in the area are busy with sand dune ORV lovers.
Join me for my next posts as we continue our trip down the coast towards Brookings with a hike at John Dellenback Dunes Trail and stops at the Coquille Lighthouse, Bullards Beach State Park, gluten free chowder in Bandon and Humbug Mountain State Park!
The latest version of guidebook above is now 10 years old, I would suggest checking current conditions on Oregon Hikers Field Forum before heading out. You can also go to the forest service for more information. This hike is on the lands of the Umpqua people, you can find out more about them here.
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