Baker Beach and Alder Dunes

Several years ago, I was looking for a new trail out on the Oregon coast, somewhere I'd never been. Such places are a rare find for me because it seems like I've hiked on every trail in southern Oregon that there is to be hiked on. While not necessarily true, my desperate search for a path which had never felt the glorious stomp of an O'Neill boot led me to a late night Google Earth perusal. Whoops, there it was! In the Alder Lake area, was a faint path bisecting a grouping of small dunes collectively known as Alder Dunes. Of course, the sketchy path disappeared from the prying and spying satellite eyes in outer space when it entered dark patches of forest. Maybe I was overly optimistic but it did not escape my attention that what presumably was the same path also exited the forest. 

Berry Creek reaches the end

Later, my friends were dragged onto my new trail and apparently Lane liked that hike (and what's not to like?) and so he penciled a repeat Alder Dunes adventure onto the Friends of the Umpqua's schedule. It was like a Richard Hike without any of the awesome responsibility of well, being responsible, so I went along for the sheer joy of hiking on sketchy trails. Because of the faint trails and network of braiding game paths, Lane insisted everybody hike together instead of our usual laissez-faire approach of everybody hiking at their own speed. Doing that in these conditions greatly increased the likelihood of finishing with the same amount of hikers we started out with, although the head count was complicated by one hiker joining us mid-hike and one other having to leave us due to a flat tire discovered at the trailhead.

Hiking is fun!

Beginning at Dune Lake, which has no dunes nearby, we grabbed the faint path into Alder Dunes, which has no alder growing nearby either. But if we only named places after nearby natural features, then we'd be starting from Lake Lake and hiking through Dunes Dunes, wouldn't we? The smallish expanse of Alder Dunes was bordered by a thick forest and our path immediately faded into the heavy vegetative undergrowth. Even though some hikers were just a few feet in front of me, they too were swallowed up from sight by the dense greenery. At times the way was discerned only by picking out the spot where the scratchy brush was marginally not as thick, like a trail had once been there several decades ago.

Mushrooms surprisingly thrive in the sandy dunes

After a few quick walk-by perusals of some seasonal ponds and lakes, the loose network of horse trails, game tracks, and social paths spit us out onto Baker Beach Dunes. Wide and expansive, just like me, these are real dunes and we enjoyed hiking along the edge thereof in the morning sunlight. It's actually a pretty cool hike to follow the edge of the dunes but we had a different task today, chiefly to hike over to Lilly Lake.  

Berry Creek, with the end in sight

Lilly Lake is a prominent landmark in the Baker Beach area but you can barely see the small lake, for it's well hid by a thick cover of cattails and reeds. Much cooler, vista-wise, is the Berry Creek Loop and after visiting Lilly Lake, we hiked around puddles of water standing on the trail overlooking the wild hinterlands of marshes, swamps, dunes and wide Berry Creek itself. I've stepped over shallow Berry Creek when hiking on nearby Cape Mountain and it's hard to reconcile that diminutive trickle with the near-river arrogantly sashaying through the marshes just before ending its journey on the beach.

Lane demonstrates the proper climbing technique

Back when I took the club on this hike wilder than most, we returned by bushwhacking through the marshes. A hidden sinkhole claimed Edwin and I as victims and the swim killed my camera. In keeping with the adventuresome aspect of this trek, Lane took us up the dunes flanking Berry Creek, but prudently avoided the marshes (and at least one sinkhole!) lurking behind the dunes. The creek had cut the dunes like a giant knife halving sandwiches (dunes...sand...sandwiches, get it?), and it was actually quite the challenge to climb up a sheer cliff made out of soft shifting sand. 

Sadly and truly, this really is the trail

From there it was a short walk atop the dunes crest on small ad hoc paths weaving between hummocks of beachgrass swaying in a light breeze. And after that mild adventure, it was a return, all of us together in one group, through the faint trails in the forest and dunes. It sort of reminded me of kindergarten where we had "If lost..." name tags enumerating our vitals such as school, parents, and our parent's phone numbers. Maybe next time I lead a hike, I'll insist on everybody wearing such tags, but then Mrs. O'Neill might have to claim me.

They say on dark stormy nights you can hear
her mournful cry "Where is the #$%@ trail!"

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Cape Mountain 12/2017

Normally, it's a simple idea: Hop in the car and drive to the trailhead. However, the drive to Cape Mountain was more like a bus route than a simple put-it-in-gear-and-go. Not too many of my hiking buddies had ever been to Cape Mountain and I had only been once, so this hike was penciled nto the Friends of the Umpqua hike schedule with your merry blogster designated to lead the way. Well, my friends from South Coast Striders wanted to join us so we arranged a pick-up stop in Reedsport; and Lane was coming over from Springfield, so another stop in Florence was arranged. Who knew leading a hike could be so complicated? However, we managed to get all 13 hikers from all their disparate towns and walks of life to the trailhead, in spite of all the logistics. Surely, things would be simpler on the trail.

Moss and trees

Well, maybe not. First we had to hike uphill on the Princess Tasha Trail, then continue on the Scurvy Ridge Trail ("Aargh" he said, in his best scurvy buccaneer pirate voice), take a left on the Berry Creek Trail, followed by a right onto the Nelson Ridge Trail. And all that involved ignoring trail junctions with trails named Lookout, Wapati, Berry Lane, and Cape Mountain. No small wonder we started out with 13 hikers but only wound up with 10 when the hike was over. Spoiler alert: everybody eventually showed up, so all was well.

Eight miles of coastal forest

The scenery is pretty basic at Cape Mountain. Elegantly simple (like the hike leader), the "views" consist of dense growths of, ferns, salal, and moss. If you want to experience 8 miles of deep coastal forest, then this is your hike. Of course, all this simplicity came with a price, as  all of us were soon breathing heavily in short order due to a rather brisk climb to the crest of Scurvy Ridge.

Edwin squashes a hitsi-bitsy spider

A couple of miles in, we arrived at the replica hitsi (a primitive Native American shelter) that had been built as part of an Eagle Scout project. I'm not sure how long ago it had been built but the hitsi is falling into a state of disrepair as it should. since they were never intended to be permanent. Since I was the hike leader, I felt compelled to teach my charges what I know about hitsis, mainly that there is a small spider that inhabits these types of structures: it's known as the hitsi-bitsy spider. Sorry, I just can't help myself and for some reason, I hike alone a lot. 

Spooky branches

The vegetation changed somewhat on the Berry Creek Trail as we exchanged tall conifers for leafless alder trees. We also exchanged the uphill hiking for a trail that lost elevation at a dizzying rate. This was a loop trail and everybody was glad we didn't have to hike back up this path but I kept quiet, knowing we'd have to gain all that elevation again, albeit on a different trail. For stats lovers, the trail lost nearly 1,000 feet in 1.5 miles.

We now head up to Nelson Ridge

Berry Creek was waiting for us at the bottom of the canyon and we all crossed the creek on a log with no pratfalls or mishaps. And then the climbing began. In fact, most of the day was spent walking uphill even though we were hiking a loop route with no net gain or loss in elevation, . Accordingly, after a mild wade across a Berry Creek Fork, the trail charged to the top of Nelson Ridge, angling through a stand of homogeneous trees on the way,

Our lunch time view

There were a series of grassy meadows on top of the broad ridge crest, the grass currently brown and dry in preparation for winter. Fresh elk poop dotted the meadow, so we know a) elk come here to visit and b) the grass is well fertilized. There was also a bench in a meadow with a partial view down to the coast, so we plopped down after checking for elk poop, and ate lunch under a gray sky. 

Seemed like we walked uphill all day long

There used to be a forest road atop Nelson Ridge, and the former roadbed inter-braided with the actual trail and it wasn't always clear which way to go. A few more signs here would be helpful, Forest Service, if you are reading this. The road was actually the Berry Lane Trail and basically continues in the same direction as the Nelson Ridge Trail; so if anybody did take the wrong trail, they'd wind up at the trailhead anyway.

Former road, now doing duty as a trail

When we arrived at the trailhead we were short 3 hikers. Dave showed up about 15 minutes later but Lane and Ceresse were missing in action. Turned out they had come up the Wapati Trail but had to turn back to retrieve some clothing left behind at Berry Creek. It's not what you think either, the clothing item left behind was a sweater or similar accouterment that had been removed to adjust body temperature. It was duly noted that the leaver of clothing was not the same person who was appointed to do the retrieving. I'm not saying which was which, but will also note that Lane's GPS had more miles on it than Ceresse's.

Dense growth made sure we stayed on trail

Anyway, Lane and Ceresse did eventually show up, none the worse for the wear. We went to Florence and stopped at Burritos Los Amigos for some post-hike tongue tacos. That was the simplest thing that happened all day.

A nice view to Sutton Lake

For more pictures of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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