Redwood Coast Trip Days 5 – 6

Day 1 And 2: The Drive in.
Day 2b: Hikes to Watson Falls and Toketee Falls
Day 3 and 4:  Some relaxing around the room, and our first dip into the redwoods
Day 4b: Trees Of Mystery
Day 4c: Ladybird Johnson Grove

Day 5: Check out the local scenery.

After such an adventurous day yesterday we decided to kind of chill, and take in the local sights. My agenda included the Samuel H. Boardman Sate Scenic Corridor, and The Tallest Known Myrtle Tree in Oregon. I kind of wish we had planned some time to explore more up north, but meh. We had some fun today.

The southern coast is very rocky, and has a lot of pretty sea stacks and monoliths to enjoy.

This is kissing rock. Not sure why they called it that. I’m going to have to go with my dad’s theory that some people kissed here once.

I love the patterns in the windswept beaches.

Some more monoliths at the next pullout south.

Particularly rocky beach, Hunters Cove I believe.

More fun wind swept beach.

Not much further south we enter the scenic corridor.  We chose to do everything north to south today because all pullouts were on the west (right side), so it would be easier to pull in and out, rather than cross traffic. Sometimes I think ahead.

First stop, Arch Rock.

I love the color of the water here today. Also, more rocks and a bay.

Back to the arch.

View from the other end of the point.

You can see the mud and muck churning in the waves from up here.

The next stop was Natural Bridges.

There is a nice little memorial plaque to Samuel H. Dicken, founder of the Oregon Coast Trail.

Then a nice little path leads us down to the overlook.

Pretty neat.

Next stop: Indian Sands.

Well, we got to the parking lot and weren’t sure where it was we needed to go. Eventually I found a trail, so on we went.

I guess we’ll do a nice hike in the woods. :)

A nice steep, downhill hike in the woods.

May favorite thing about Oregon is going from deep woods to coast just like that.

We just reached the edge of the woods when we found this sign.

Okay, neither of us are wearing that good of shoes… I don’t think we need to see this feature today. I guess they are sandstone cliffs.

Here is the beginning of it at least.

Back into the woods!

Looking up.

All was not lost though, I really did enjoy this short trail in the woods.

Next stop, Whaleshead Beach. The drive down is not paved and is a little steeper than I would like. My little sedan made it down and back up ok, but it was a little iffy in spots.

That rock really does kind of look like a whales head. (The pointy one on the right) It also looks pretty similar to Haystack Rock up north.

Whaleshead Creek had formed a little pond, and a nice river reaching out to sea.

Fun patterns.

Seems to be coming from this spring coming out of the rocks.

Another spring coming out of the rocks.

Some reflection…. wait a minute…

Did that whale shaped rock just spout like an actual whale? No way. I had to have imagined it.

It did! Holy crap! Completely unknown to me, as it is not mentioned in the little pamphlet I got, or the sign for the beach, there just happens to be a perfectly placed spouting horn on Whaleshead Island. WOW! Looking back, it probably helped naming the place, but still. You think it would be something you mention to go look at. Either way, it was a delightful surprise.

Occasionally the water just splashes out of it.

I like the way this one turned out. I guess I have pretty good luck with spouting horns.

A spouting horn is a narrow opening the waves have created in the volcanic rock. Usually only active during high tide (in my experience). As the tide comes in, the waves push into the opening and a delightful spray of water comes out that looks a lot like a geyser.

Quick crop so you can see it closer. I couldn’t hear to awesome noise it makes like the one at Cape Perpetua, but it is still cool to see.

Quick process of one. This one is also harder to predict when one might be coming. It was still really cool to see. I love some of the fascinating shows nature puts on for us.

We didn’t see any whales this year, but here is a whale spout from our 2011 trip  to compare it to.

Yea, it is kind of small.

Another angle of the nice monoliths.

A small section has cleaved away.

The cliffs above.

Another angle of Whaleshead Island. I like this one.

Whaleshead Creek is kind of gross up here.

Well that was fun. Now we’re going to head back north and see what other adventures we can find.

Passing Kissing Rock again. (DBP)

Returning to Gold Beach we saw a sign for a Pioneer Cemetery and decided to check it out.

I was originally going to leave the rest of the pictures here in this post, but then thought some people may not be as interested in history and death as Landis and I, so I moved them to it’s own post. It’s short, but If you would like to see more, here is a link.

After this we decided to check out Oregon's Tallest Known Myrtle Tree.

You can see more of that adventure here.

View of the bridge over the Rogue Rover. (DBP)

The Rogue River from the bridge. (DBP)

After a quick stop by the Geisel Monument, we returned to our room and decided to check out dinner options. Unfortunately Gold Beach did not have a whole lot of options. But we did find The Barnacle Bistro. They were the only restaurant to offer clams at a reasonable price but didn’t offer much else in the way of seafood. Landis had fish and chips and I had fish tacos. All of it was amazing, and the staff was awesome. I would definitely return. I would say the Clams were on the level of Kylios, which is better than Pier 101 (both in Lincoln City).

There was also a pet bakery. We picked up some treats. Here she is trying to find a place to stash her treat.

Sunset with the standard wall of fog we are used to. The difference this year is it never came to shore for us.

Plant highlighted by the sunset.

Fun sunset and waves.

Enjoying a fire on the coast.

We decided to drive to to the nearby beach and get some different shots of the Milky Way. At first I was upset the cars driving down the coast would ruin the shot, but I actually like how they lit up the cliffs. Unfortunately, the best lighting I didn’t realize my tripod wasn’t level (The beach was very dark).

Another shot. I think this might be my favorite.

Day 6: Back down to the Redwoods!

On our last full day on the coast we decided we wanted to see more of the redwoods! So, southwards again.

Terrible, terrible DBP shot of the archway near Hunters Cove.

There I got a shot of all the signs for the states we visited on this trip. (DBP)

At the end of Wonder Stump Rd. We’ll come back to this. (DBP)

I love the fog in Crescent City. (DBP)

Above the clouds! Driving by this quickly didn’t quite capture it as I had hoped but we were really above the fog line. Its awesome, and terrifying at the same time. (DBP)

First stop the Elk Prairie Visitor Center in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

 

Check out this old phone booth. It even actually has a phone! I wonder if it works.

Our first adventure was the Cathedral Trees Trail. It was a truly amazing hike! But, a lot of pictures so I decided to make it it’s own post.

After Cathedral Trees we stopped by Big Tree again. Much less people. Big Tree, while not the most creative name is the largest tree we have seen yet (that we are aware of). 21 feet in diameter, 304 feet tall. That is taller than the Salt Lake City County Building, The Salt Lake Temple, or the Salt Lake Capital. Just amazing!

Big Tree is handicap accessible, and is a very short ~200 ish ft walk from the parking lot.

Panoramic, which is not great from this particular angle.

Us, for size. I feel so tiny!

Next stop, Corkscrew Tree. Wow, how in the world did this happen?

Panoramic. 

Another moss covered tree nearby.

Another angle of Corkscrew Tree.

Trail back to the car. The trail was pretty short and easy. I would say 1 to 2 tenths of a mile max.

We also hiked the Ah-Pah trail which was a nice short little trail. Again, to keep this post shorter, I decided to put the rest of that adventure in it’s own post.

Well I wish we had more time to explore, but it was time to be heading back. I had an amazing time hike through these giant trees. It is extraordinary and nothing compares!

I liked the flowers lining the highway here. (DBP)

That looks fairly recent. (DBP)

Driving through the Del Norte Redwoods. (DBP)

On the way back we decided to go down Wonder Stump Drive.

Well, the trees are thick. (DBP)

Well, we found a few large stumps, but no “wonder stump” looking at the earlier image I posted, somewhere in here is a stump with a plaque that explains why it is a wonder. But we didn’t find it. Actually, I just found the place to be somewhat depressing. I mean, I get logging was big, and times were tough. But I just cannot imagine what kind of monster would look at these magnificent trees and decide they should be cut down.

I did find some information on it, I guess THE wonder stump is on private property and is (best guess) a 2000 year old tree growing over a 1500 year old log and is in a very advanced state of decay. It looks much more interesting than what we found so I am a little upset we didn’t find it. Oh well, another time.

Old postcard of it.

 

Another large stump.

On the way back into Oregon we saw a sign for Oregon's Redwoods. Well, we have seen a lot of redwoods, but what the heck!

After a couple miles we found the turn off, over this one lane bridge.

After the bridge it was a gnarly looking dirt road that said 1 lane with turnouts, 4 miles. Well, it did sound cool, but we were hoping to be back to our room before long. Again, maybe next time. We turned back around and headed back up the 101.

 

Enjoying our last evening on the coast.

Panoramic after the sun went down. I love being able to see the rounded light of the sun after it sets. I don’t often get to see a horizon in Utah, so this is kind of a strange sight to me.

Well that was another amazing day of adventure. We are about done on the coast but on the way back we explored a couple different things, including, finally, Crater Lake! I can finally tick that off my bucket list. This post is running long so I am going to cut it here. Thanks for stopping by!