kyotesue

Out the Back Door Kayaking Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

Current location: Rocky Point, Oregon Sunny and 50F at 6am, predicted high today 79F

Ah yes, finally. We managed to walk away from yard and house chores for a day and loaded up the kayaks. I was appalled when I realized that the last time we had the boats in the water was back in Florida in March. Sheesh. As I wrote in the title, some of the very best kayaking in the country is right out our back door. The Rocky Point boat launch is just a mile from our house, but yesterday we decided to travel a few miles north on Westside Road to launch at Malone Springs.

Yes, some of you know my last name is Malone, but no, the springs were named long before I arrived in the Klamath Basin in 2002.

We were on the water by 9:40 AM, and a big surprise was the lack of mosquitoes at Malone Springs. The Forest Service boat launch site has two free campsites, but the mosquitoes can often be daunting during the early summer. In fact, most of the east side of the Cascade range in Oregon is plagued with a heavy mosquito population, including some of the more lovely lakeside campgrounds. Maybe not as bad as Minnesota or Alaska, but definitely something that requires planning. Don’t forget the mosquito spray for shoreline activities! However, once out on the water, mosquitoes and bugs are almost never a problem.

Skies were perfect and the temperature was cool enough that we wouldn’t get overheated out on the water. Winds were light, coming from the north, so we had a bit of a breeze and a very little bit of current to paddle against on our way north to Crystal Spring.

One of the great pleasures of working soil survey in the Klamath Basin was the opportunity to map the soils in the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. With more than 14,000 acres of organic soils supporting wetland plants, the marsh is directly adjacent to the forested lands of the Cascades. The complex vegetation patterns provided endless riddles of soil and vegetation patterns to decipher. Crystal Spring_032

Looking north as we paddle along the creek, we are treated to a view of the Crater Lake Caldera, still covered in snow.

Unlike the spring runs in Florida, the waterway we travel here is fed by hundreds of springs that come from the pumice soils all along the eastern slope of the Cascades. The water is cold, and there are a few large springs that are named, but many others feed the creek that flows through the marsh, as well as the thousands of acres of natural wetlands that are on the northern side of Klamath Lake.

The refuge canoe trail is famous for fly fishing. These 3 guys were the only folks we saw on this day on the refuge.

Different kinds of soils support different kinds of vegetation, and this is true of subaqueous organic soils as well. One of my major accomplishments mapping these wetlands was figuring out the complex relationships between different types of organic soil and vegetation patterns.

Remember that old saying, “out in the toolies”? These are the real tules, bigstem bulrush, that dominate the marsh.

They provide amazing cover for the many birds that we heard but did not see as we paddled along, When the tules get tall, they hide the sandhill cranes, great egrets, and blue herons that we heard calling throughout our paddle.

sedges Other major native plants that occur in the marsh are several species of sedge (carex).

The sedges seem to like the organic soils that are less weathered, more fibrous, and the willows occur in areas where the fibers are the least weathered, soils that are peaty rather than mucky. You have no idea how many holes I bored in this marsh to finally figure this out. As they say “What difference does it make?” Maybe none to the casual kayaker, but for the refuge managers it is helpful to know how to manage the refuge, and soil information has a big influence on refuge management decisions.

Other plants have colonized in some parts of the refuge, such as cattails and Canary Reedgrass, beautiful to look at, but not natural to the environment and detrimental to the existing plant communities.

Beaver dams are plentiful along the route.

No houses along the route except for this vacation property where our fishermen were staying.

Just a bit more than 4 miles of paddling brings us to beautiful Crystal Springs.

Traveling along Westside Road by car will lead to a roadside rest area with a trail down to the spring, but launching from this spot would be a bit of a pain.

North of Crystal Spring is a well known bed and breakfast called Crystalwood Lodge, visible from the channel north of the spring that I am reasonably certain was dredged for spring access.

We turn around for the paddle down the creek, with current in our favor and no southern wind coming toward us from the lake. The winds often come up about 2 in the afternoon and on this day we beat them.

There aren’t many places along the route that are conducive to landing, but back at the area where we saw the teepee, there is a rocky point that provides a place to get out of the boats and give both Abby and Mo and me a bit of a break before we continue back along the meandering route to return to Malone Springs.

The snow is still deep on Pelican Butte. Our home is at the base of that long slope below the mountain at the left side of the photo. The reflections on the return route are always mesmerizing to me, and I can’t tell you how many photos I have from this spot.

I paddle slowly, sometimes simply drifting along with the current, taking time to photograph the beautiful wocus, sacred and important plant to the local tribes for centuries.We slide into Malone Spring once again, still quiet with no other campers or paddlers around on this Wednesday afternoon. It has been a perfect paddle.

With the marsh vegetation providing great cover, the birds that we actually saw were a redtail hawk, redwing and yellow head blackbirds, and as Carol Herr would say, lots of ‘little brown birds”. Later in the day I did have one great blue heron fly gracefully across the creek right in front of me, but the camera was in the dry bag by that time so no photo. I made a sound recording of a bird call I didn’t recognize at all, and hopefully I can get Judy or Carol to tell me what the bird might be. I know the sounds of the herons and the cranes, but this one was completely new to me. No snakes, turtles, or alligators are in these waters, and I found myself missing them a bit.

I mapped our route with the Motion GPX app on my phone, just over 4 miles each way.

Here is another map that is related only peripherally to the kayak trip.

The black line on this map refers to the known wolf activity zone in the Cascades for OR7 or Journey, as he was named by Oregon schoolchildren. If you haven’t read about him yet, here is the story. There are many newspaper articles out there for this event, but I chose to share this one because it was written by the son of a good friend.

I call Journey “my wolf’, not because I have actually seen him, but because one night back in 2011, when he first began his journey to southern Oregon and California, while he was traveling through the Wood River Valley, Mo and I heard his howls during our evening time in the hot tub. Liz Parrish, owner of the Crystalwood Lodge actually saw him near her place, no doubt interested in her pack of sled dogs. Crystalwood is probably the most dog friendly lodge I know of!

“My” wolf is a daddy.

For the first time in nearly a century pups have been born in the Oregon Cascades. I believe we need to live in a world that includes predators for balance. Some of my local Rocky Point friends are all up in arms over this wolf near us. They are cattlemen, and ranchers, concerned for their livestock. Journey and his mate are hidden high in the mountains, and in all his travels he has never approached any domestic animal. I support the right of the wolf to live in Oregon, in this part of Oregon. There are great ranchers who have figured out how to live with wolves, and I pray that here in the Wood River Valley they don’t ever lose an animal to a wolf. I pray for Journey’s safety and I celebrate his new family.

Life and the Rest of May

Current Location Rocky Point Oregon Sunny and 45 F with a predicted high of 75. Perfect

If the month of April at Rocky Point is mostly about winter cleanup, the month of May is definitely about gardening. Real gardening, not just all the cleanup, but the kind of gardening that rewards one with watching beloved perennials grow lush, shopping for the hundreds of annual plants required to keep some color in the yard over the summer, and planting all of them.

The house at Rocky Point is on land that isn’t really that big, even less ground than the Grants Pass winter cottage, but there is a lot more to do here it seems. Lots of nooks and crannies, lots of different planting beds, and of course, lots of pine needles to keep digging out of the rocks.

A big job this time of year is getting those pine needles off the roof. Mo does the climbing and I hold the ladder and manage the electric cord for the blower. I laughed this time as she carefully crawled back down from the steep side of the eaves and I said, “How much longer do you suppose?” We love it here, so much. But it IS a lot of work at times, and the question lingers…how long will Mo be able to climb that roof to blow off the needles.

In the mean time, after returning from the coast before Mother’s Day, we spent some extended time over at the cottage, doing some of the cleanup jobs that are on the list over there. The nice thing about the cottage is that there is really no deadline. Other than burning the debris in the springtime burning window, we have as many years as we need to get that .89 acre cleaned up and ready for us to live there. The defining moment may never come, then again it could come all too soon, maybe when Mo no longer wants to plow snow or blow needles off the roof at Rocky Point.

As luck would have it, we decided to be in Grants Pass for Mother’s Day, with a plan to do the classic Mother’s Day activity of Sunday Brunch at a beautiful restaurant. Daughter Melody and the kids drove over on Sunday morning to see the cottage and share the morning with me, Mo, and Deborah at the Taprock Grill next to the Rogue River.

Mothers Day 2014_039 I had so much fun watching all the moms and grandmas and seeing all the flowers and presents and everyone posing for family photos at the various lovely sights in the park adjacent to the restaurant. I felt like I was right in the middle of a middle America tradition that somehow remains the same in spite of a changing world.

During our time in Grants Pass, Mo split the rest of the oak from the tree we took down last year, moved a flower bed that was right in the middle of the planned new drive entry to the MoHo shed, mowed the acre and did a ton of weed eating. We cleaned up the outside corner and built a mound, bought a couple of crepe myrtle trees for color, planted the mound, and Mo burned a ton of debris.

We parked the MoHo along an old cement patio and it felt just like our own private campground. Even though Deb was gone and we could have stayed in the cottage, we chose to enjoy our own space in the MoHo, sitting on the patio watching the sun set over the hill to the west is a special pleasure of the land in Grants Pass. At home, our sunrises and sunsets are blocked by the high Cascades and the immense forest.

sue Deanna Deb on Mothers day

Our choice to be in Grants Pass that weekend was especially auspicious, since daughter Deanna and husband Keith once again were traveling south along I-5 and I got to see them twice in less than 30 days! On the Saturday before Mother’s Day, they parked at a nearby rest area for the night and met Deb and I for breakfast at Elmer’s not far off the freeway.

Sad thing about the Grants Pass cottage, even though it has more land than Rocky Point, there is no place to park the big rig there, and the roads leading to the cottage are too narrow with weight restrictions so the kids can only park downtown at WalMart to spend some visiting time with us.

With their LA arrival time scheduled for the next day, they had a few hours to do some sightseeing with us, and Deb and I drove them through the gorgeous Applegate Valley not too far south of the cottage. Deanna and Keith are saving money while trucking with a plan to buy property somewhere eventually, and of course I am hoping that will be close to me here in Oregon. Grants Pass_005

Lucky for me, the springtime beauty of the Applegate was fabulous, with blue skies dotted with puffy whites and new fresh green bursting out all over. I love the Applegate area, with farms and wineries, and for Deanna and Keith, who love being a lot farther away from town than I do, it was perfect. We spent quite a bit of time looking at some interesting properties that really caught their eye.

Nothing was decided, but I am glad that there will be sweet visual memories of the lovely Applegate area in their minds over the next few years as they make decisions about where they might want to settle down. No snow, kids! Although they also love Alaska, so I suppose snow isn’t yet much of a deterrent to them. Deanna and Theron

Deanna became a grandmother for the fifth time in May, and once again I am a great grandmother. Theron was born in Wenatchee this month, brother to Orion and Tearany. I am glad that Deanna has the opportunity to be close to these grandchildren in spite of family complexities.

I have that crazy obsessive feeling that often happens this time of year: too much to do and not enough time: too many choices: too many things I want to be doing! Obviously, writing has slipped to the back of the list and I am simply keeping track of what is going on with short notes on my Google calendar. I do love that particular application.

On another note, an application that I don’t love quite so much is HGTV’s House and Landscape program. I actually paid for the stupid thing and spent quite a bit of time trying to at least get a rudimentary replica of the cottage and grounds set up so we could get some ideas about what me might like to eventually do there.

Not so much. The learning curve is huge, and I am not completely stupid. The software is cumbersome and after a day or two of fiddling with it, I decided that a piece of graph paper and a pencil was the better option. Maybe some snowy winter day I will get back to it.

In the midst of gardening and landscaping work at two homes, I am trying to have time to quilt. Our quilt group gives away “huggie” quilts to anyone in the community who is hospitalized or has lost a loved one. They have given away 141 quilts in the last six years since they started doing it. As a fairly new member, I have yet to complete a huggie quilt, and am now working on one. I am a new enough quilter that it is extremely hard for me to give away a quilt to someone I don’t know. But I decided it is time to step up to the plate and the quilt is in the works.

Tiny living room in the cottage all painted an pretty thanks to Deborah’s hard work

Late in the month, Deborah was sent to Dallas for a work related training, and her company allowed her to fly home to Grand Junction instead of Grants Pass. When she moved home from Colorado last year, she had to leave most of her belongings in a storage facility and this was her chance to get everything back in one place. With a bit of complexity due to missed flights, she finally got everything on the truck and headed west via I-70 and Highway 50, the Loneliest Road in America, and pulled up to the Grants Pass cottage late on Sunday evening.

Mo and I were waiting with supper and hugs. The next day, with help from neighbors Glenn and Karen, we all unloaded the truck into Deb’s new storage place, just a couple of miles from home. The cottage is tiny, but at least she can go down to her storage and get things like her blender and spices, and other small things that she has missed so much in the last year while adjusting to her new life.

John Jr, Deanna, Sue, and Deborah in 1966 in Oroville California

For me, getting Deb’s stuff out of storage had another benefit. Deb was the caretaker of several boxes of very old family photos. When I think of my “bucket list”, getting all the family photos scanned, organized, named, and catalogued is huge on the list. I took back the boxes and started the scanning project. I know it is morbid, but there are many people my age leaving the planet, and the one thing I want to have completed before I do so is the photos to the kids project.

My mother who passed away in 1952, me at 3, and my grandmother who passed away in 1993.

I knit during the early news programs, quilt till it gets warm enough to get outside, garden as long as my back holds up, and then try to work on photos the rest of the time. I barely scan blogs any more, and like last month, I rarely comment. Thank goodness for Facebook, a bit quicker and I can at least let folks know I am still around and reading.

Friend Jeanne sent an email yesterday, complaining that there was no blog and wanting to know what in the world I was doing. Friend Mary Ann from Albuquerque sent an email asking if I had done something with the Mother’s Day blog she thought was up there and couldn’t find. Nope, no blog. Just a quick facebook post with photos! So, for my two most loyal friends and readers….here is the blog!

5-09-2014 Leaving Brookings and Highway 199

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon Sunny and in the 70’s today

We were so lucky to have three gorgeous sunshiny days at the Oregon Coast. Thursday and Friday were dark and rainy, but we thought our entire time at the beach would be dark and rainy, so we were prepared.

After our morning hike on Wednesday, I checked the weather radar and with the wispy clouds in the west and the low cloud bank over the ocean and knew that anything else we wanted to do that required sunshine should be done soon.

Azalea Park is one of the treasures of Brookings. Located on the east end of town, the park has a rich history dating back to the 1800’s. I read that some of the old azaleas in the park were there when Lewis and Clark wintered here in 1805-1806.

Unlike the gorgeous hybrids of rhododendrons and azaleas we have today, these old beauties are tall and rangy, with soft muted colors. Still, it is great that the city of Brookings has preserved the park and the old azaleas.

We have visited the gardens in the past, at different times during the spring, but this one I think was the best. As I said previously, it is a crap shoot, and there is no way to plan a specific date for the best bloom.

We again walked the same paths that we walked last December in the dark of winter, enjoying the Christmas light show. The paths meander around the grounds lined with every possible color and variety of rhododendron you can imagine.

Another favorite of mine are the pastel spring growth of the Pieris japonica.

Huge gunnera plants I first saw at Butchart Gardens in Victoria are reminiscent of a fairy tale world where people are tiny and can hide under giant leaf umbrellas. With blue skies and brilliant sunshine, we had no need to hide under any kind of umbrella.

Thursday night the rains started, and we didn’t mind a bit. Lowering the awning on one side let the water pour off without pooling in the canvas, and we picked up the rugs and kept the chairs safe from rain. Even a walk or two around the park was a welcome break from reading, watching a couple of great movies, and doing that ‘relaxing’ thing that we had promised ourselves for this trip. Loeb Azalea Gard_218

I have often mentioned traveling home via Highway 199, but usually I never manage to get any photos of the route.

It is a magnificent drive along the wild Smith River, past the redwoods at Jedediah Smith State Park, winding into the mountains adjacent to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

There are steep drop offs along the way, some narrow roads with signs warning of even more narrow sections and sharp curves.

Still, we saw full size semi’s negotiating the curves easily, with even more large fifth wheels and Class A motorhomes along the route. It can be done, and isn’t difficult in a big rig. It just requires slowing down and enjoying the view.

There are a very few parking areas along the way, but plenty of turnouts to let the speedy ones pass, and a few places with passing lanes.

Hiouchi RV Park is just a bit east of the redwoods, and is a nice private park. We stayed there once in 2011, and enjoyed sunshine away from the coastal fog with only a short drive to either Crescent City or Brookings. After leaving the river, at the Oregon-California state line, there is a large tunnel, with plenty of clearance for most any kind of big rig.

When traveling to and from Brookings and Grants Pass, the route crosses over the Oregon-California border twice. Sometimes the ag inspection stations are open, most of the time simply asking us if we have fruit, plants, or firewood on board. We do say ‘no’, in spite of the occasional apple or head of lettuce hiding in the RV fridge. So far, the inspectors are usually so taken with Jeremy on the dash that they smile and nod and never give us a bit of trouble.

It takes a short two hours to travel from Brookings to Grants Pass, and we arrived back at the cottage early in the afternoon to mixed sun and rain. It was that blustery kind of spring rain that comes and goes, however, and Mo managed to mow the property on Friday afternoon. I did a bit of weeding, visited with the neighbors, and made plans to enjoy the next two days of Mother’s Day weekend with three of my four kids. Lucky Me!

Two Trails

Current Location: Brookings, Oregon 49 degrees and 100 percent chance of rain

At the moment, it is raining and gray and we are comfortably relaxing in the MoHo. Just a warning for all the blog purists out there who say they don’t want too many photos. There are 20 photos in this post, more than I usually add, and yet it IS a photo tour of our trail walks yesterday. If you don’t like photos, then skip it. I made them big specifically for Nicki, who always requests the big ones so that she doesn’t have to click to get a bigger image. You can’t please all the people all the time, but you can definitely please some of the people some of the time!

The predicted rain finally reached Harris Beach early this morning. We knew it was coming, in fact it was expected to show up on our first day here. Instead, we enjoyed three days of gorgeous sunshine. Waking this morning to the sound of rain was soothing, and we actually slept in to almost 7:30. Of course, it helps if someone gets up at 4:30 or so to let the dog out, give the cat a treat, and feed the dog. Then they are ready to settle in and let us sleep. Two Trails_156 Yesterday, knowing that our sunny respite was soon coming to an end, we were happy for one more day to walk the beach and hike a couple of the trails. I know that someday, when I am hopefully much, much older, I won’t be able to hike these nice little trails with their gorgeous views, and decided I wanted to do a “Sherry” and take you on a hike, and give myself a place to go when I want to remember just how lovely these walks can be on a sunny day at the ocean.

A short trail we sometimes forget to do is the Harris Butte Trail. The trailhead is just north of the entry kiosk at the park. The Harris Beach Trail also begins at this location and makes a loop around the tree covered butte, but Mo remembered that there is a lot of poison oak along that trail. With the dog along, I get a bit paranoid about poison oak, so we decided to skip that route, lovely as it is.

The short hike to the top has a few switchbacks, is a bit rocky in places, and a bit steep. The hike takes maybe ten minutes at the most, but the view is wonderful. The hillside is covered with thick vegetation, with only a few limited views of the beach below through the trees.

The viewpoint is a great photo site, especially in the early part of the day when the sun is in the east. Sunsets viewed from this spot must be spectacular, but for no reason I can imagine, we haven’t hiked up here to view the sunsets.

Below the cliff where we stood, was a great view of the Harris Beach State Park Day Use Area, the one we walked to Tuesday afternoon.

This is the best spot to view Goat Island, and we noticed there was a kayak parked on the steep shoreline, with a few people (dots of color) moving across the slope. It seemed as though they were monitoring vegetation or bird sites or something, with the faint impression of some kind of marking posts on the north facing grassy slope.

With a bit of searching, I found out that Goat Island is the largest island along the Oregon coast. It was the first unit comprising the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1936. The island contains deep soils and a variety of native vegetation condusive to burrow-nesting seabird species.

Goat Island hosts 24% of the statewide nesting Leach’s Storm-Petrels and more than 109,000 nesting seabirds comprising 11 species. The island serves as a night roost for thousands of Aleutian Canada geese in the spring and a wintering area for a small group (40) of Dusky Canada geese.

In addition, it seems that the biggest problems for the nesting birds are boats approaching too closely, low flying aircraft, and “human trespass”. I would imagine that the people we saw walking across the slope were supposed to be there, and that kayaking to the tiny beach and exploring the island on foot would be illegal.

The second trail we walked was our favorite South Beach Trail. This trail can be accessed directly from the big parking lot just west of Highway 101 near the entrance of the state park.

In addition, there is a sweet little trailhead that begins at the southern end of the campground. This walk leads through deep spruce forest, and is lined with thick vegetation typical of the moist climate in the Oregon coastal forests.

Emerging at the aforementioned parking lot, the trail continues down the steep cliff to the beach below.

With asphalt pavement on the steep trail, it is a joy to walk, either up or down, and there is a nice bench for a break if you need it. On this spring day, we were surprised that the park staff has yet to do much clearing along the trail and the grasses and flowers were wild and overflowing and lovely along the path.

At the bottom of the trail, there are a few logs to walk over, arranged conveniently into a rough step like configuration, and the beach stretches to the north and to the south.

We usually walk south, because with the tide out we can walk a greater distance before being stopped by rocky cliffs. The beach shifts and changes with the winds and seasons, and we noticed that the ephemeral brackish water lake was gone, completely erased by tides and winter storms. The large pool was formed by a small stream, emerging from the cliffs, and the water was fresh enough that Abby could swim and even drink.

No more. Now the stream crosses the sand, circumnavigating the large stacks and going directly to the ocean.

My Keen Targhee boots did their job and I crossed the stream without getting the least bit wet. It was just a bit cold for barefoot hiking and wading, so I was glad for dry feet this time.

As I was taking photos, I realized that we rarely do this walk in the early part of the day. Most of my photos of the ocean from this part of the beach are against late afternoon sun. It was a treat to have the sun behind me for a completely different kind of light.

With low tide just an hour or so ahead of us, we saw only one red sea star, too far out to get much of a photo. There have been times when we have seen more than we can count, along with green anemones. It is never the same.

This time the most dramatic find was brilliant green moss on the rocks, soft as velvet, and many different kinds of algae covering the sea stacks, still dripping with seawater.

Just around the corner from the rocky jumble that stopped our walk, is another small beach that lies directly below Mo’s former condo. Sometimes we can negotiate the jumble, but this time it looked daunting so we didn’t bother.

We spent a bit of time wondering at how it might feel to ascent this tram, and remembered climbing steps like these to get to the beach from the condo.

I am not sure exactly where the state park boundary ends on South Beach, but we assume that once there are homes along the cliff above us we are outside the state park and Abby can run and play off leash.

Mo threw the ball for her until Abby finally refused to drop it. I think that was her way of saying she was finally worn out. For 12 years old she does great, and still loves to retrieve the ball, but she is getting a bit slower. Makes me a bit sad. Of course, I am slowing down as well, and that makes me a bit sad too.

Nothing Peaceful about the Pacific

Current location: Harris Beach State Park, Oregon Clear and sunny predicted high 61F

As anyone knows who has lived near the Oregon coast, the Pacific Ocean in this part of the world is anything but peaceful. It is wild, raging, cold, and big. Waves are monumental, even historical in some places. The wind often blows relentlessly, the skies are often stormy, although we have been blessed on this trip with brilliant sunshine.

I never thought much about this face of the ocean until I visited other places where the seas are gentle and the surf laps at white sands like a kitten at milk. Last night when we hiked down to the beach, my first thought as I stepped onto the sand was, “Oh my gosh! I forgot how dark the sand is here!” Before our Florida visit, I never gave it much thought, it was simply ‘sand’. Although as a sand collector, my jars of sands from around the world run the gamut from white to brown to gray to yellow to brilliant red, even black. There is a black sand beach just south of here on the California Lost Coast, so I didn’t have to bring it from Hawaii.

The winds in Brookings were howling yesterday afternoon, with a steady 20 mph blow. The ocean as far as I could see was whipped up into a frothy frenzy, and the waves crashing over the rocks had long veils of wind-whipped mist. It was beautiful, and energizing, wondrous to behold. Not peaceful or necessarily relaxing.

There weren’t many people down on the beach due to the wind, but a few hardy souls braved the wild weather. We saw a young woman get out of her car and climb the big rock overlooking the largest sea stack island on the Oregon Coast, Bird Island, also sometimes called Goat Island. She stood in a few yoga poses, a rather amazing feat in that wind, and then I heard her voice against the wind in prayer.

Down on the beach, a lone woman with gray hair to her hips was raising her arms toward the wild waves and chanting and singing loudly toward the sea, oblivious to us and our dog as we walked behind her in the wind. Crowds are definitely not a problem when visiting the beaches in Oregon. It is always a bit of a shock to me to see people lined up arm to arm with umbrellas and towels on those beautiful white Florida sands vying for space. Not here.

Another difference: both in Texas and Florida, along the Gulf Coast, we found beaches, long level gorgeous beaches where you could walk as far as you could manage. There was nothing to make you actually turn around and walk back. Here, walk one way and get stopped by cliffs, another way the jumble of rocks is too complex to navigate, or the tide has come in and there is another small sea stack blocking your progress. I saw no tide pools in Florida, or in Texas. I saw so many beautiful shells, but no agates or crazy weathered sea rocks.

There are three major routes down to the beach from the campground. The first route is a road, paved, but rather steep, and that route ends at a large parking lot. There is an accessible paved trail down to the sand, restrooms, and picnic tables. From this area, the beach can be accessed either along the paved trail, or to the north down a short rocky walk over huge driftwood logs to the north end of the beach.

The second major route is called the South Beach Trail, another steep, but narrow path that has been partially paved to withstand the severe beach erosion that can destroy it annually. We like the South Beach Trail, and Abby likes it as well because it leads outside the state park boundary and she can be off leash. It is a bit more distant from our campsite, so last night we chose the road to get down to the beach. Walking back up the same way is a boring long steep haul up.

Instead of returning that way, we found the meandering path the winds over rocks and driftwood, and then up another steep and very narrow Rock Beach Trail that ascends an overlook with benches to enjoy the view.

We have hiked down this trail before, but going up was much easier. None of these trails are particularly long, and ‘real’ hikers might get a bit bored with them. We saw plenty of real hikers in the park, loaded down with backpacks, hiking the coast. There are many beautiful, long, and strenuous trails in the vicinity, especially at the nearby Samual Boardman State Park, but we simply haven’t wanted to find them. We come to Harris Beach to relax! No matter how many times we visit, the beach is never the same.

Another fabulous feature of the beaches here is that they are dog friendly. Some areas require leashes, but there are many off leash areas nearby where Abby can run, chase balls into the surf and hike the trails with us on her own. After spending so much time trying to find dog friendly places along the Gulf Coast, it is wonderful to be back in the happy dog land of Oregon

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, in spite of the high winds above us and around us, our little campsite on the northeast side of the campground was protected. Our awning barely fluttered, and then only now and then. After returning from the beach we couldn’t believe how still the air was in our space. Mo built a nice hot campfire without a bit of trouble from the wind. Above us, we could see the giant spruces whirling around, but the campfire smoke didn’t even go in circles as usual, it rose in a nice column straight up most of the evening. Crazy, but welcome.