her lovely nest.: a splendid summer - hiking Cape Falcon on the Oregon Coast

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

a splendid summer - hiking Cape Falcon on the Oregon Coast

[down to the beach].

Whew! It's been a hot summer here in Portland. how has yours been?
To escape the heat, we've spent a lot of days hiking at the Oregon coast.

[Did you know that the entire 362 miles of Oregon's coastline is public land? Dang I love this state.]

One of our favorite hikes is at Cape Falcon, located in the Oswald West State Park about 10 miles south of Cannon Beach. We've done this hike 3 times and I'm ready to do it again!

Very important side note.

Now this is critical, pay close attention.

If you go through Cannon Beach, you must stop at Bruce's Candy Kitchen for the bestest saltwater taffy ever. Flavors galore! My favorite is the Marionberry of course. Jim's is vanilla. Three to five pounds seems to be our sweet spot.

[saltwater taffy, oh my!]

Ok. Now that we've loaded up the obligatory taffy, we can motor south to Cape Falcon.

There are a couple of trails here, the one we like is an easy to moderate 2.5 mile out-and-back hike [5 miles round trip] to the top of the Cape. At the top, you're rewarded with incredible views to the north and south.

[at the trailhead].

This trail winds through dense forests so it's wonderfully cool and shady. Perfect for those hot summer days. The trees are all gorgeous of course, even the fallen ones. Maybe especially the fallen ones, like this beauty:

[gorgeous trees and nursery stumps].

The trail is lovely and well-maintained. It's described as family-friendly by portlandhikers.org and I'd definitely agree.

[on the trail].

We splashed through a couple of creeks and came upon a nice view of Blumenthal Falls, which feeds directly down to the ocean...

Just 1 more mile to go at this point, and then of course there's the big payoff at the top.
Where you can rest and eat taffy and listen to the waves and the birds.