The Wilder Side of Bandon

 

Elephant Rock at Bandon

May 2005

BANDON, Ore. – The world-ranked links courses at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort may get most visitor raves in this Pacific Coast town these days, but walkers who leave the golf bags at home will find fabulous hiking on the wilder side of town.

Coastal trails are among my favorites, and I’ve had the good fortune to enjoy some of the most storied in Alaska, Maine and Ireland. To me, this quartet of short Pacific Coast hikes rates right up there with the Kenai Peninsula, Acadia National Park and the Dingle Way. Hikers in search of bountiful wildlife, bracing breezes, stunning vistas, or ancient forests can find all of that and more on the wilder side of Bandon.

Coquille Point

Don’t be fooled by the thundering surf and the picturesque off shore islands visible from this headland within the city limits. Bountiful wildlife, not beautiful scenery, are the highlight of this short hike. Coquille Point is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge because of the flocks of sea birds and herds of marine mammals which gather there. More than 60,000 breeding seabirds make their nests on the sheer cliffs and grassy headlands of sea stacks like Elephant Rock, including murres, puffins, petrels, cormorants and guillemots, while down below seals and sea lions haul out on wave-washed rocks.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has tamed the terrain with two long staircases leading to the sand and a paved trail across the headlands that can be combined into an interesting cliff-top to surfside loop.

Interpretive signs sketch in species information and geography, while local wildlife enthusiasts are often on hand on weekends to lend a close up view through a spotting scope and answer questions about the animals. The headland itself boasts an array of wildflowers and interesting vistas. To the north lies the historic 1896 Coquille River Lighthouse alongside the treacherous bar where many lumber ships wrecked on their way into or out of the port of Bandon. To the south are the sea stacks—Face Rock, Komax, the Cat and the Kittens – featured in a native American legend about a young girl captured by an evil spirit that lived in the sea.

The Beach at Floras Lake

Wind surfers have made Floras Lake their primary southern Oregon destination because scientists say it’s the windiest place on the entire 394-mile coast. Those bracing breezes may be one reason Sunset Magazine has rated this Oregon’s loneliest beach. Another is that for years access has been restricted between March 15 and Sept. 15 to protect threatened western snowy plovers, which nest in the dry sand above the high tide line. But neither the breeze nor the birds should discourage visitors because the dunelands north of Floras Lake offer a truly elemental encounter with the sea.

Here hikers must stick to the sand, keeping below the high tide line which in places nears the top of the dune. Huge silvery drift logs jut from the dune where they’ve been jammed into the sand by the winter’s legendary blows. The beach below is untracked and washed smooth, drying sand lightly etched with semi-circles where receding waves have lapped gently before subsiding. At low tide, the beach pitches steeply toward the water, eroded by waves that may thunder or may whisper but never cease. In spring and early summer visitors may find the beach littered with tiny By-the-wind Sailors, jellyfish-like creatures with a distinct blue sail and known as velella that normally inhabit the open sea. Such discoveries lead hikers on into the steady breeze which hums against the ears.  The breeze is remarkably fresh, spritzed with a tang of salt but no scent of land, an sea of air as restless as the waves rolling in from the west. Soon the towering coast of off shore rocks and mountainous headlands disappears behind and the elemental magnificence of the ocean emerges – ceaseless wind, ceaseless surf and ceaseless sky.

 

Blacklock Point

Blacklock Point has been a popular destination with the locals for thousands of years. Archaeologists date the earliest occupation at 5,600 B.C. from charcoal discovered in excavations and nearby shell middens. Blacklock Point remains a popular spot for primitive camping in a tree-sheltered flat adjacent to the open bluff or a narrow grassy bench just above the beach on the south side. And on fine days in all seasons the headland draws lots of day trippers, so it isn’t a prime location for solitude. What is prime here are stunning vistas and alluring side trips that offer plenty of reason to visit again and again.

One outstanding feature of this short hike is the wild rhododendrons that bloom in summer and fall in the woods near the trailhead. The trail can be wet, following a creek there and crossing a bog here, but dries out after it crosses the Oregon Coast Trail and nears the sea. Sun-dappled woodland gives way to thick forest where venerable Sitka spruce and Douglas fir spread overhead before the path emerges in a grassy saddle sprinkled with wildflowers that leads to a steep headland with spectacular views. To the north, the 150-foot cliffs appear to have beem carved by a giant knife, all sharp edges running between deep vertical striations.  A side trail off the Oregon Coast Trail to the north leads to a waterfall that cascades to the beach. To the south, the ground falls away more gently to a small cove with a narrow beach and a one-mile trail to the mouth of the Sixes River. In the distance beyond the river rises Cape Blanco, the westernmost spot in Oregon, and its a red-roofed lighthouse.

 Humbug Mountain

I wanted to climb Humbug Mountain the moment I saw it. To me this was the quintessential Oregon coast – a wild and remote mountain where an ancient forest drops precipitously into the sea. At 1,756-feet, Humbug Mountain is the highest point on the Oregon coast, an enormous blockade of U.S. 101 that forced road builders inland to skirt three sides of the forested landmark. Travelers can thereby admire the mountain’s distinctive profile—a singular mound that stands apart from the rest of the coast range by virtue of the meander of Humbug Creek. Those who pull over at the trailhead soon discover that here the ancient forest is more fabulous than the view.

Coastal rain forests can be alluring but impenetrable. Humbug Mountain’s switchbacking trail offers hikers a rain forest close-up. Alder and rhododendrons line the creeks. Glossy green ferns riot from every wet spot, spilling around tree trunks and across rock faces. The lower elevation is woodsy, with maples and myrtles hung with moss and vines. Higher up the forest thickens with ancient trees. On a hot, still summer day the air is scented by a canopy of trees far overhead – Douglas fir, grand fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Port Orford cedar. Ocean views come as snapshots snatched from between two trees – an offshore rock skirted white by a tidal surge or a dazzle of light glinting off the waves like diamonds. In the end, the view from the summit is nice, but what really counts at Humbug Mountain is the climb through ancient forest. Beach walkers have the sand to themselves on the wilder side of Bandon, Ore.

Copyright 2005 © by Beth Quinn Barnard of text and photographs. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

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