I considered naming this post “Dodging wildfires on the Pacific Coast,” or “A really unfortunate detour,” but those sound so alarmist, sad, and, well, dangerous, which misses that we really had a good time on the Oregon Coast, and in the California Redwoods. Well, we mostly had a good time. All except for the unfortunate detour, cancelled lodging, and dodging wildfires parts. But let’s start where the story begins….
Astoria to Yachats
We spent a sunny Sunday driving from Astoria, Oregon down through a series of beautiful coastal villages to Yachats. Along the way, we stopped in almost every one of little towns. We photographed Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, enjoyed a Pronto Pup, the original corn dog, at Rockaway Beach where it was invented, photographed pelicans at Netarts, stopped for a view of Devil’s Punchbowl, and whale watched at Depoe Bay. We even saw a very cool colony of sea lions!
By the end of the day, we reached Yachats, where we had booked two nights to see the sights in the area. We spent a very full day hiking the Whispering Spruce trail at Cape Perpetua Scenic area for sweeping views of the Oregon Coast, heading down to Cape Cove to see the Heceta Lighthouse for more sweeping views (lots of sweeping views here), then scooted back up to Cape Perpetua to see its most famous two features at high tide: Devil’s Churn and Thor’s Well. We ended the day at Ona, a fine dining restaurant on the coast, for a wonderful meal of local seafood. Having “checked the box” on the main attractions in the Yachats area, we were ready to complete the Oregon Coast the next day, ending the day in the California Redwoods.
Google maps and Wildfires
Leaving on Tuesday morning, we could see that a stretch of U.S. 101, the Oregon Coast Highway was closed between Port Orford and Gold Beach, probably due to construction, but there was a detour available. The detour started out as a country road, but then turned to gravel and wound around the mountain, taking us across beautiful forested ridges, but creating concern. What if this detour leads to nowhere? And then it appeared – the dreaded gate and “No Trespassing” sign – the end of the road was an area being rehabilitated by the forest service and our only choice was to retrace our steps back down the mountain.
The entire episode cost us about three hours of time. In hindsight, we should have been more concerned that we didn’t see highway signs announcing the road closure and detour. Once we returned to internet land, we downloaded the Oregon Department of Transportation app and checked it and, sure enough, the road closure indicated had long since been lifted. We resumed our travel along the coast road, blowing past more stunning views of the dramatic Oregon Coast in our rush to get to the Redwoods.
We stopped in Crescent City, CA to buy groceries – the stretch from Crescent City south to Trinidad is pretty isolated and there are almost no restaurants. And that is when the message from Airbnb popped up on my phone. Our Airbnb host had experienced a family emergency and had to cancel our booking — two hours after our scheduled arrival time. The coast was already quite booked, due to wildfires in Southern Oregon, in addition to the usual crush of visitors in mid-August. We took a deep breath and went to work searching for a new place to stay, in an area where there is almost no lodging available ever. As luck would have it, we were able to snag a place at Elk Mountain Cabins near Orick, five minutes from Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, where we planned to spend our time. Crisis averted. And, as an added bonus, Elk Meadow Cabins is a viewing area for Roosevelt Elk, which we actually saw! Our two days hiking in the Redwoods and visiting Fern Canyon were magical. And yet, we awoke each morning with ash on our car and witnessed helicopters flying over in the evening carrying large buckets of water to douse nearby fires in Southern Oregon.
A quick change of plans
By our third and last night in the Redwoods, we checked on what awaited us down the road – we were set to visit Ashland, Oregon and Crater Lake National Park. What awaited us was a closed road and smoky destinations, and this time we could see that it was the real thing. We quickly cancelled reservations in Ashland and started looking for an alternative out of the fire zone and in a place with good air quality that would take us close to our next destination near Salem, Oregon. As it turned out, the best alternative was to return to Yachats.
Yachats: Lovelier the second time around
Being back in Yachats, without the self-imposed pressure of rushing around to be sure we saw the “right” things was very freeing. One the first things that we noticed was the path between our hotel and the ocean. It’s called the 804 Trail. It starts on cliffs above the ocean in downtown Yachats and ends in sandy beaches on the next town to the north, Waldport. The trail length is 8.04 miles, hence the name. We walked part of the 804, visited the little known and hard to find Gerdemann Garden, and visited the Yachats Mercantile, where one can buy everything from artisanal cheese, to jigsaw puzzles of Yachats, to garden tools. We talked to various locals around town, visited the Saturday Farmers Market, enjoyed delicious pastries from the local bakery, Bread and Roses, found a hidden park in the center of town that was made from reclaimed wetlands, and simply walked around town and along the coastline to soak it all in. One morning, we drove down to Waldport so that John could talk to the folks at the local marina to get the skinny on where and how to go crabbing or dig for clams, just in case we ever return.
A formula to get the most out of travel
We have always felt that we travel better when we take a slower place and linger for a while, and the Yachats experience was proof of that. So, our advice, which we need to learn to take ourselves, is this: when planning a trip, figure out how many places you want to visit and then cut the list in half. Then figure how many days to you want to spend in each place and multiply that by two. In other words, slow it down.
You and Me, Odyssey 