A Mountain Hearth

Tales of Modern Homesteading and Outdoor Adventure

To the Lighthouse

Every April for the last few years, our family has gone camping at Cape Blanco State Park. Each time we go, there, the abundance of things to do, and beautiful places to spend time outdoors keeps us coming back. Cape Blanco lies on the Southern Oregon coast, near the town of Port Orford. The westernmost point in the state, the cape juts out into the ocean between the Elk and Sixes Rivers, and the 1,800 acre park offers eight miles of spectacular hiking trails through spruce forests, wetlands, beaches, and along ocean cliffs. I heard that the cape was once covered in ancient Spruce forest so tall that they created their own fog, but the high incidence of shipwrecks prompted the clearing of this forest. The lighthouse, built in 1870, is the oldest standing lighthouse in Oregon and is open for tours April through October. We went up in the lighthouse during our trip last year, and my kids were fascinated with the huge, sparkling Fresnel lens. We aren’t even lighthouse enthusiasts by any means, but it was still very cool to see up close.

Since the weather this time of year can be fairly erratic, this trip is usually our last “luxury” camping of the season, and we stay in a little one-room rustic state park cabin looking out over the cliffs at the ocean. They’re very similar to the state park yurts in layout and cost. (Here I need to thank my Grandparents for the Oregon State Parks camping gift certificate they gave us for the holidays. It was a very thoughtful and useful gift that has kept us camping through the winter months this year! If this gift idea is striking your fancy for the outdoorspeople in your life, these gift certificates can be found at Oregon State Parks by calling 1-800-551-6949.) April is still off-season enough to make a warm, dry place to sleep a key ingredient in ensuring that we get out camping before the weather warms up. There was a pretty wild windstorm our first night there this year, so it was a good thing we weren’t in our tent.

From the campground, there is a trail with a short walk down to one of our favorite beaches. This is a beach you can also access with a vehicle, so if you find that piece of driftwood that you just can’t live without (and need to turn into a gnome cave) it makes it much less of a stoic feat to bring it home. I like all the little nooks and crannies to explore along the shoreline and the forts that folks build in the driftwood. It’s also a low-traffic beach this time of year, and we have gone for morning walks where we had the whole beach to ourselves.

Another thing I love about this part of the Oregon coast is the landscape of beautiful green rolling hills beside the sea dotted with grazing sheep and cattle. Tall grasses sway in the breeze, lazy rivers meander through, and sea birds soar above. It somehow feels like I’ve journeyed to a far off land. The days are often sunny and mild in April and this is when I start to really feel like Spring has arrived. This is just the right sort of place to lay on your back in the sunshine and watch the clouds float by.

We often stop for a tour the historic Hughes House, the 1898 farmhouse of an Irish pioneer dairy farming family. They offer volunteer guided tours April through October. I like wandering through the big kitchen and drooling over the old wood fired cook stove, and imagining it’s my own house and kitchen. From here, a trail weaves through the tall grasses along the Sixes River out to the beach. It’s a very mellow hike, and we have enjoyed seeing river otter playing along the banks a time or two.

For a day jaunt, we travelled up the Elk River this year to visit one of our favorite campsites on a large gravel river bar. In the summer and early fall, this is one of the best swimming holes we have ever found. The kids went wading in the chilly, turquoise-blue spring runoff and declared that it felt like summer. I had to agree.

Then we stopped at the Elk River Fish Hatchery. For those of you who have never taken your children to a fish hatchery, I would highly recommend it. Kids love seeing all the fish up close in the long shallow ponds where they’re raised for release into the wild. We have yet to visit a hatchery where someone didn’t come out to greet us right away and offer to let the kids feed the fish. I think they’re really excited when kids come. It’s great fun. The trout all jumped up to eat their tasty treats, and they were close enough to touch!

Before heading home on Sunday, we decided to check out Grassy Knob. My favorite local author, William Sullivan, wrote about it in his book, Listening for Coyote, as he described his hike across Oregon from Cape Blanco to Hell’s Canyon. He began at Cape Blanco, since it is the westernmost point of the state, and headed up the forest service road to Grassy Knob from which he took off cross country to connect in with another trail. We were intrigued by his description, so we went up to see it for ourselves. A short .3 mile hike from the end of the road took us through the forest to a small rocky outcropping where a fire lookout tower once stood. We could see the coastal range and the Grassy Knob Wilderness stretching out to the east, and the Pacific Ocean and Cape Blanco the the West. It was a beautiful spot. We were all very impressed that Sullivan had taken off cross country from this spot. It looked like a lot of rocky ridgelines, steep slopes and thick brushy forests as far as I could see. My husband, moved by the sunny day and beautiful views, treated us to a lively reading of the love poem on the inside wrapper of our dark chocolate. It was a memorable time and place.

All good things, and all camping trips have their beginning and end, and although I would have not minded staying at Cape Blanco camping for an undetermined amount of time, we had to head back home. We returned invigorated, refreshed by our time out in nature, and loaded up with rocks and sticks. I can’t wait for our trip next year.

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