Trekks and Travels: Niagara Falls and Cascade Head 17 August 2012

Jean, Becky and I set out for the coast on what was supposed to be an extremely hot day in the valley. We originally wanted to hike Jefferson Park but smoke from a fire in the Warm Springs area convinced us to head west. So we were headed for Cascade Head between Lincoln City and Neskowin Beach. When we got close to the coast, it started getting foggy and cloudy so we decided to head to Niagara Falls north of Neskowin 18 miles to give the beach a chance to clear up. Unfortunately I did not read the map well enough and this little side trip (for a trickle of a waterfall and a 2 mile hike) turned out to take hours. The road just got more and more remote and to top it all off, my mother though we were going to Cascade Head, Dan thought the same and Becky's mom thought we were headed to Jefferson Park!!! Here we were miles from any of that. Here are the photos.

Niagara Falls

basalt lined box canyon

devil's club in the sun

Oooookaaay...back to the original plan.
We arrived back at Cascade Head at 11:30a and parked at the Savage Park Boat Ramp. Popular hike...many cars in the lot. Kind of "domesticated" too. We headed up through woods at first and then broke out into the meadow.

GPS track of the Nature Conservancy Trail (Steve Hart)

Soon we had a view of the Salmon River and the beach...through the fog. It never did clear up and only got worse as we climbed higher.

Soon we got to the lower view point where I had had my lunch the last time I was here. Beautiful view of the cove below.

As we climbed the fog took over. We huffed and puffed up the hill (1200 ft gain in 2.1 miles). When we got to the top we could see - NOTHING! We found a spot in the flattened grass to have our lunch away from people. Then headed down.