Three Arch Rocks – wanderingyuncks

Oceanside, Short Beach, Tillamook Wetlands, and Anderson Hill – 10/28/23

A cold snap arrived in conjunction with the final hike of our official 2023 season leaving us with a decision to make about where to go. One of the great things about living in Western Oregon are the hiking options. We were debating between heading to Government Camp near Mt. Hood to see some of the new snow that the system had brought with it, or to the beach where things would be a little bit warmer. In the end we decided that we weren’t quite ready for a Winter wonderland yet, and highs in the low to mid 50s sounded a little more appealing than highs in the low to mid 30s. The beach it was where we had some unfinished business at Oceanside.

We had attempted to hike the beach at Oceanside earlier in the year on a different multi-stop day (post), but had saved it for the final stop only to find the area so crowded that there was no place to park. We wouldn’t be making that mistake again so this time it was stop number one on the itinerary. We had no issue finding a parking spot this time arriving just as the Moon was disappearing behind Three Arch Rocks.
From left to right: Storm, Finely, and Shag Rocks.

Three Arch Rocks is one of two designated wilderness areas along the Oregon Coast Managed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife as a wildlife refuge the 15-acre wilderness area was the first designated refuge West of the Mississippi and is one of only a few wilderness areas entirely closed to entry by the general public.

From the parking lot we took the stairs down to the beach and headed north toward the Tunnel which leads through Maxwell Point to Tunnel Beach.
Cape Lookout (post) to the south.

Maxwell Point

View from beside Maxwell Point.

The Tunnel was built in 1926.

The Tunnel from Tunnel Beach.

Three Arch Rocks from Tunnel Beach.

We hiked North along the beach passing a rocky point to Agate Beach before turning around where that beach ended at a cliff a little more than a third of a mile from the Tunnel.
The end of Tunnel Beach. At higher tide it’s not possible to get around the point here.

Getting closer to the end of Tunnel Beach. This set of ocean rocks are part of the Oregon Islands Wilderness, A string of of over 5,600 rocks, reefs, islets, and islands lying within three miles offshore mirroring almost the entire length of the Oregon coast from Tillamook Head to the California border. Like Three Arch Rocks this wilderness is also closed to the public.

Bald eagle on top of one of the rocks.

Seal

Agate Beach

Cape Lookout from Agate Beach.

After reaching the cliff we headed back to the Tunnel and then continued South along the beach 2.3-miles to Hodgdon Creek across from Netarts Spit (post).

An assortment of sea birds.

Maxwell Point and Cape Lookout

Sun starting to hit the Three Arch Rocks.

Sand dollar

Cormorants. There was a steady stream of flocks of birds heading south along the coastline.

Footbridge over Fall Creek.

Fall Creek

Frosty leaves near Fall Creek.

Great blue heron in a tree above Fall Creek.

Happy Camp

Hodgdon Creek

Seagulls and common mergansers near Hodgdon Creek.

Buffleheads

Netarts Spit

Happy Camp from our turn around point.

We returned the way we’d come and then drove North on Cape Meares Loop Road just under a mile and a half to a pullout across from a sign for Short Beach.
Three Arch Rocks and Maxwell Point now in full Sun.

A local built the staircase leading down to Short Beach and it is about as “Oregon Coast” as a staircase could be.

The beach only extends a short distance to the South.

The sea stack and Short Creek Spillway to the North.

We headed North along the cobblestone beach which isn’t the easiest surface to hike on, especially when they are wet and slightly frosty. On the positive side the cobblestones added some great sounds to the ocean as the waves tossed them about then rolled them over one another as the waves receded.

Starfish

The sea stack

Cape Meares (post)

I didn’t notice the little waterfall along the cliffs below Cape Mears until I looked at the pictures.

Red-throated loon

A third of a mile from the stairs we reached Larsen Creek Falls.

Apparently at low tide it’s possible to reach the cliffs below Cape Meares, but the tide was coming in and it also appeared that some sliding had occurred at some point, so we turned around a tenth of a mile beyond Larsen Creek Falls.
The area ahead in the shade is where things started looking a little sketchy.

These two beach hikes came to a total of 6.6-miles, 5.5 at Oceanside and 1.1 at Short Beach. From Short Beach we drove to Tillamook to try the Tillamook Bay Wetlands hike which I’d found as I was looking through the Oregon Hikers Field Guide. We parked at the Goodspeed Road Trailhead. The field guide entry showed this as a 3.6-mile loop following dikes through wetlands between the Wilson, Trask, and Tillamook Rivers. We were immediately confused due to the field guide mentioning a map and metal gate at the Goodspeed Trailhead but there was neither at the signed parking area.
Apparently there used to be a metal gate here instead of a the rope/chain.

We were pretty sure we’d followed the driving directions though so we stepped over the chain onto the grassy dike and began following it through the wetlands.

Bald eagles in the tree tops.

Bald eagles

The map in the field guide showed an elongated loop following what Google Maps and the GPS showed as the continuation of Goodspeed Road to the Wilson River then along that river to the Tillamook River where the route looped back along it then the Trask to Sissek Road. The dike we were on though reached a slough where it turned sharply South.
This is where the dike/path turned South. Our best guess is that there has been additional wetland restoration since the entry in the field guide and some of the dikes that the guide route followed have been removed.

We didn’t come up with our theory about what was going on until after we got home. While we were hiking we kept checking the GPS map/track and comparing it to the map in the field guide. We still weren’t sure if we really had started in the right spot given the lack of a metal gate and map at the trailhead or if we’d missed a turn somewhere. We continued to follow the dike system which looped around and after just over a half mile the GPS showed that we were on Sissek Road (now a grassy dike).
We weren’t getting across that.

Somewhere out that way, beyond the slough, was the Wilson River.

Now heading East toward Sissek Road.

At this point we had left Sissek Road which used to extend straight from Goodspeed Road where the signs and rope/chain is in this photo (ahead to the right at the 90-degree turn).

The dike system brought us to another signed parking area we’d pass on the way to the Goodspeed Road Trailhead. This one is just past a one-lane bridge over Hall Slough.

At this point we were sure we’d started at the correct trailhead and were now convinced we’d missed a turn somewhere near the start of the hike. First we tried walking a grassy track South from this parking area which brought us to another muddy slough, but not before spotting an egret and a great blue heron.

We backtracked to the parking area and then hiked Goodspeed Road back to the trailhead where I began searching for a different route.
Hawk above Goodspeed Road.

One path led down to Hall Slough ending in mud at it’s bank.

A second path led north on what the GPS showed as a former road but it was too overgrown and flooded to make it far.

We wound up doing just 1.9-miles here including the out-and-back explorations.

It was a fine little hike and we saw a nice little variety of birds, but it was a little disappointing not to be able to see any of the rivers. We had one last stop planned, another short hike I found in the Oregon Hikers Field Guide, the Anderson Hill Loop . The trail begins at Anderson Hill County Park to the right of a metal picnic table.

The 1.2-mile reverse lollipop loop gains just 130′ as it climbs to a power line corridor on Anderson Hill. The view from the power lines is of course limited due to the power lines, but the trail was in good shape and the forest was nice making for a decent little outing.

Junction with the spur trail to the power line corridor.

Footbridge and stairs leading back up to the picnic table.

The four hikes came to just 9.7-miles and 270′ of cumulative elevation gain and included ocean views, waterfalls, forests, wetlands, and ample wildlife.

It was a beautiful day weather wise and great way to end our season. We’ll scale back our hiking for the next 5-6 months, but we plan on getting out at least once a month until our 2024 season kicks off. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Tillamook Area Hikes

Netarts Spit – 1/25/2020

We were down to the last weekend of the month so in order to get our monthly hike in we were going to have to deal with whatever weather we were dealt. Heading into Saturday the forecast was for rain everywhere I checked so we decided to stick to our original plan which was to visit a series of lakes in the coastal range. That plan was scrapped on Friday night when I checked the trail conditions and discovered that one of the ones that we’d be on had been closed this month due to heavy storm damage. Plan B had been a nearly 3 hour drive to Reedsport, but a 100% chance of rain didn’t warrant that long of a drive. I looked to our 2021 hikes and decided on Netarts Spit at Cape Lookout State Park which was a more reasonable hour and a half drive away.

We set off just before 6am with all our rain gear and drove to the Cape Lookout Day Use Trailhead where we purchased a $5 parking pass and noted that it was in fact not raining here.

We suspected it was just a matter of time and put our rain gear on before starting off. One of the issues with last minute hike swaps is that it limits the amount of time we have to read up on the hike. The Netarts Spit hike is featured in two of our books by Matt Reeder (“Off the Beaten Trail” and “PDX Hiking 365”) as well as in the Oregonhikers.org field guide. I had looked at both and noted that while Reeder’s description indicated to hike along the beach the field guide mentioned an inland route for the first portion. After walking down to the beach near a picnic shelter we walked back up to the shelter and followed a path north through some trees.

The view south from this path was dominated by Cape Lookout jutting out into the Pacific. Several waterfalls could be seen on it’s flanks.

When we came to another beach access point just before a gated section of the campground we decided to head down to the beach.

Had I studied the entry in the field guide more thoroughly I would have known that it recommends following the road through the campground to avoid the cobblestones along the beach here.

The tide was just high enough that in order to stay out of the Ocean we were forced to walk on these rocks and they are not fun. Ankles were rolling and twisting in all sorts of directions as we stumbled along.
Ocean coming right up to the rocks.

When we got our next chance we popped back up off the beach into the campground following a gravel track past some group tent sites.

We’d already seen one bald eagle fly overhead and here we spotted another one sitting in a tree ahead.

While watching the eagle a great blue heron flew over.

Beyond the group tent sites the road was gated and turned into a grassy path with Netarts Bay to the right and dunes to the left.

The grassy roadbed soon ended at a stand of trees where a clear trail continued.

Trail at lower right with a little standing water.

The field guide had mentioned that sections of this trail may have standing water but we weren’t quite prepared for long stretches of calf deep ponds. Heather was smart enough to find a deer path a little higher up on the left side (Which was something the field guide said you might have to do but in my quick reading I hadn’t picked up on that.) I tried sticking to the trail for a bit, but after a while in the water my feet starting getting cold so I joined her. We made the decision to try and follow one of these paths up and over to the beach which we managed to do.

Then it was just a matter of finding the best spot to drop back down onto the beach, and more cobblestones, yay.

Luckily it wasn’t long before we were able to drop onto the sand.

There was a lot more blue sky than we’d been expecting which was a pleasant surprise. To the north we could see the Three Arch Rocks although a perpetual fog seemed to be hanging over them.
Three Arch Rocks – one of two wilderness areas in Oregon off limits to visitors.

We were able to spend the next 4 miles to the end of the spit on the beach. There were no other people in sight (until the fishing boats in the bay). There were a few seagulls here and there and we saw at least 8 different Bald Eagles counting at least 6 congregated in a short stretch of trees.

A final eagle awaited near the end of the spit.

We were hoping that by the time we got to the turn around point we’d have a better look at Three Arch Rocks but the view wasn’t much clearer than it had been all morning.

We had stubbornly kept our rain gear on waiting for the forecast to come to fruition, but we stopped here to remove it since we were way too warm. We then made a short loop around the tip of the spit to look at the bay before starting back.

One thing that both Reeder and the field guide agreed on was that it was impossible to travel along the bay due to marshy conditions so we started back down the beach.

The tide was coming in and we noticed that waves were starting to cover the entire beach and forced us up into the dunes a bit where we followed some deer tracks for awhile.

We spent the majority of the next three and a half miles staying up as high on the dunes as possible which made for some more difficult travel. The grass on the dunes is surprisingly sharp tipped and it was all pointing north so we were walking directly into the points. The thickness of the grass also meant that you couldn’t really tell what the terrain underneath was like so there were plenty of awkward steps, although no falls. I had done that on the beach when I tripped over a small piece of driftwood.
Looking back north from the dune crest.

Looking north at what was to come.

Thick forest between the bay and the dune.

One of several semi-circles created by grass going back and forth.

Being up on the dune did allow for some views of the bay where we spotted birds including surf scooters and great blue herons.

We were forced down onto the backside of the dune as we neared the point where we had crossed over the beach that morning. Here a maze of game trails led in all directions. The trick was attempting to avoid the thorny rose stalks and blackberry bushes as well as thickets of nearly impassable salal.

We eventually made it back to the submerged trail and grassy track from earlier which we followed back to the campground and then stuck to the paved road as we returned to trail leading between the campground and picnic shelter.
Cape Lookout from the trail to the picnic shelter.

Seagull atop the shelter.

Our GPS put our hike at 11.1 miles which was in line with the field guides 11.2 and a little longer than Reeder’s 10 miles. We both agreed that it may have been the hardest hike we’d done along the coast due to the tricky terrain, although part of it might also be that it had been over a month since our previous hike and we’re a bit out of hiking shape. In any event it felt like an adventure which was nice and the fact that the rainy forecast turned into just a mostly cloudy day with a couple of sun breaks made for a great start to 2020’s hikes. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Netarts Spit