Wild Waves Wonderful Walks

On Highway 101 just south of Yachats, we’re driving through the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area on the way to Heceta Head Lighthouse. The scenery is so spectacular here that the view at each hairpin curve tempts us to applaud the seascapes of rocky headlands, wind-twisted trees and roaring waves. We find a turnoff and stop to listen to the booming waves and sniff the salt air.

And there, through the trees, sits the 108-year-old Heceta Head Lighthouse, a slender white candle soaring more than 1,000 feet above the North Pacific Ocean. The scene is the stuff of travel posters.

It’s no wonder that Rue, the resident ghost at the light station bed and breakfast adjacent to the old lighthouse, refuses to leave this beautiful coast. The invisible lady, they say, earns her keep by helping to tidy the rooms.

Here, as all up and down the length of the state, the Oregon coast is a wondrous destination in any season, but especially cozy and quiet in fall and winter. Hideaway hamlets boast sunsets that spread golden ribbons across the sea. Uncrowded beaches display driftwood, seashells and surf-washed kissing rocks for lovers. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, storms will thunder through with waves crashing against basalt boulders.
Come during the off-season for beachcombing, hiking and storm-watching. Temperatures can be surprisingly mild. (But pack rain gear, just in case.)

A trio of special getaway places along the coast is worth your time. From north to south, they are Neskowin, Yachats and Bandon — singular communities with contrasting personalities, and all with abundant natural beauty and nourishment for the soul.
We introduce them here.

Neskowin, a secret hideaway
Never heard of Neskowin? That’s not too surprising. The 400 or so year ’round residents are determined to keep their town small and mellow. Bustling Lincoln City, with an array of lodging places, restaurants and shops, is only about 13 miles to the south.

Neskowin is unincorporated. There’s no city government or police force. But there is a steadfast Community Action Team that is swift to defeat proposed projects that would blemish Neskowin’s charm.

“We want to keep things as they are,” says Jill Holzworth, a condominium manager. “We have 4 1/2 miles of beautiful public beach that’s never really crowded. Sometimes I’m the only one on it.”

And there are two golf courses, cycling routes and hiking trails for active travelers.

Neskowin’s only restaurant gets high ratings for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The town’s only store carries items from videotapes to fine wines. An arts center offers classes for painters, basket-weavers and other crafters.

From its beginnings, Neskowin was a coastal retreat for work-weary residents of Portland and Salem. Most visitors rent condos or vacation homes.

But despite the town’s practical underpinnings, there may not be a more romantic spot on the Oregon Coast than Neskowin’s Proposal Rock. The haystack-shaped monolith boasts generations of suitors who’ve proposed marriage to their sweethearts in the rock’s shelter.

“Many of those who became engaged at Proposal Rock return for their wedding anniversaries,” says Donna Ferdig, a Neskowin innkeeper. “It’s a tradition.”

Though a marriage proposal may not be in order on your trip to Neskowin, you might try a local hike: the Drift Creek Falls Trail, south of town. From Neskowin, drive south on Highway 101 for about 13 miles, then east on Highway 18 for about four miles, and turn right at the sign for Drift Creek Falls. The falls parking lot is about nine miles down the road.

There is a 240-foot-long suspension bridge (Oregon’s longest) over a gorge on the Drift Creek Trail. The view is 100 feet down and features a waterfall tumbling 75 feet.
Trail information: U.S. Forest Service, Hebo Ranger District office, 503-392-3161;
www.oregoncoast.com/hebord/.

Yachats, for perfect storms
First, so you won’t be pegged as a total stranger, the name is Yachats, as in “YAW-hots” — not “Yatchets,” rhyming with “hatchets.”

Next, get your bearings at Toad Hall, a coffee house on Third Street in downtown Yachats, kitty-corner from the Little Log Church Museum. Locals gather there each morning for lattes and spirited discussions. They’re happy to direct visitors to some of the coast’s best scenery.

The aforementioned Cape Perpetua Scenic Area is the star attraction, but visitors don’t have to explore more than a few yards from their oceanside lodgings to find a delightful walking trail. It’s known as the Yachats 804 Trail, and it’s right in the heart of town.
About I mile long, the main trail provides close encounters with wild waves that smash on big rocks and send geysers of spray into the salt air. There are tide pools to explore. And there are benches along the way where travelers can rest and enjoy the view.

Historians say the trail was built on a path used long ago by Native Americans. Somehow, it escaped development, and now it’s an Oregon Coast treasure. Hikers on the 804 have been known to find smaller treasures — handmade glass floats that have been scattered around the beach by local glass artist Bryan Duncan and local merchants. On occasion, a float will be found in a trash bag at a sunset- or whale-watching site.

“It’s fun, and it encourages people to pick up garbage when they go hiking, and that’s a good thing,” says Tammie Mullikin, a hotel desk clerk.

Yachats itself is a charmer, a gem of a resort town on the central coast, about 25 miles each from Newport to the north and Florence to the south. It has worthy restaurants and accommodations, and its bigger neighbor towns both offer first-rate dining, lodging and shopping options.

Forecasts for winter storms pack Yachats with visitors. It’s storm-watching at its best, and the best watching is from guest rooms with hot tubs and fireplaces.

Suggested hike: the St. Perpetua Trail, a 2.6-mile round-trip. It begins at the visitor center for the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, just south of Yachats, and climbs the south face of Cape Perpetua to gain a breathtaking ocean view.
Information: Yachats Chamber of Commerce, 800-929-0477; www.yachats.org/.
Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, 541-547-3289; www.orcoast.com/capeperpetua/.

Bandon, world-class golf and red gold
A friendly resort town on the southern Oregon Coast, Bandon is framed by blue-gray sea and expanses of sand. Besides the offerings of a wonderful beach with phenomenal rock formations, Bandon Dunes, one of the nation’s top-rated golf courses, lies just two miles or so to the north. The town itself is worth a visit.

“We’re a small town with a real sense of community,” says Julie Miller, events coordinator of the Bandon-by-the-Sea Chamber of Commerce.

Most of the 3,500 or so residents of Bandon — 25 miles south of Coos Bay and about 100 miles north of Brookings and the California border — are longtimers, many of them having arrived as visitors and deciding to settle there. Bandon is no bustling, hurry-up tourist center; rather, it is easy-going, pleasant.

“We’re more like an undiscovered hideaway,” says Julie Miller. “There are only two stop lights in town, and the second one was added just in the past two years.”

The commercial core is Old Town, a reminder of the way Bandon looked before a fire in 1936 destroyed most of it. The Old Town district, covering six square blocks, is now a home to a cheese factory, art galleries, eateries, assorted shops — plus, a candy store featuring cranberry confections.

In fact, cranberries are big in Bandon’s history. “Red gold,” locals have called them since the 1880s, when a fellow named Charles Dexter McFarlin planted the state’s first cranberry bog near town. Having come west from Cape Cod, Mass., to pan for gold in California, McFarlin was too late, so he traveled on to Oregon where he planted cranberries. The Bandon area is now one of Oregon’s leading producers.

Possibly a more alluring draw for visitors is Bandon Dunes, the stunning seaside golf course. Winning praise from the golf world, the resort not long ago was rated among the top five in the country by Golf Digest. The course overlooks more than 20 miles of shoreline in what the designers call a “dune environment.” An equally beautiful and challenging second course, Pacific Dunes, opened last year.

Not a golfer, but love nature? Walk the nature trails by Bandon Dunes.

Two more things to check out. First, across the Coquille River from downtown Bandon is Bullards Bay State Park and the Coquille River Lighthouse, dating to 1896. The grounds are open all year to the public.

Second, a suggested hike: the South Slough National Estuarine Reserve, in the Charleston area, about 22 miles north of Bandon via Highway 101. The Hidden Creek Trail there blends forest, meadows and marshlands. It’s rated an easy hike.

Additional information: Bandon- by-the-Sea Chamber of Commerce, 541-347-9616; www.bandonbythesea.com; Bandon Dunes, 541.347.4380