Humbug Mountain Trail

 I know what you are thinking, "there are two Humbug Mountains on the Oregon coast, so which one are we discussing here?" Or perhaps you have followed that thought out to "And why are there 2 Humbug Mountains. Hell, why is there 1 Humbug Mountain?"

You ask a lot of questions for so early in the blog.

We hiked the southern Humbug. The one that shows up in most of the google searches and is a state park with a great trail. The one that has the dubious bragging right of being the tallest Mountain in Oregon (that rises straight up from the ocean). Sort of like being the smartest kid in third grade that sits in the back of the class nearest to the door. 

The other Humbug is even less famous. It is the one that sits in the shadow of and gives you a good view of Saddle Mountain (the famous mountain that Lewis and Clark could see from Astoria and mentioned in their journals). That Humbug is also famous for being seriously clear cut forested and then having a black and white photographer make art of the destruction.

Lots of Clear Cut areas near both Humbugs

The southern Humbug (the one we are hiking) was named by some guy who got lost and was made about it. Humbug evidently being a derogatory term. Wikipedia says: in 1851 it began to be called Tichenor's Humbug when an exploring party sent by Captain William V. Tichenor, founder of Port Orford, got lost and headed north of the port instead of south. Tichenor stated that the name was chosen "to palliate their gross failure."

Today, it is a significant headland of the Oregon Coast. It rises up hundreds of feet higher than the surrounding coastline and sticks out a bit thus forming a weather barrier going up the coast. it also is rugged enough that it forces the coast highway to turn inland around the mountain. Old route 1 used to go on the seaward side, but was evidently too expensive to keep up. You can still hike that old highway, however. 

Today we are hiking up to the summit. We are hoping for a good view. The summit was in clouds when we were approaching in car from the North, but the sun was out and the weather was warm and I have high hopes that the clouds will burn off before we get up the 1800 feet and 3 miles to the summit. 

The trailhead parking lot was cold, icy and muddy. Not a good omen. But that turned out to be the worst of it. The trail itself was dry and well maintained, with large wooden posts with milage markers every quarter mile all the way up. 

This is a medium steep hike. The first mile does get you heart beating, not only with the incline but also with the beautiful views of huge old trees and a couple of glimpses through clearings at the north coastline (looking up to Port Orford).  After a mile of long switchbacks, you come to a junction where you can take the Eastern trail or the Western Trail. These two trails go in different directions up the mountain and meet at the summit. They are both signed with the mile markers (all pointing down hill) and are about the same length. The Western Trail is a bit shorter (and thus, steeper). If you have bad knees (and want to hike both trails) I would do the steep trail going up. Might sound counter intuitive but at least for me, going up is easier than going down. 

The flora is typical Oregon Coast rain forest. Mostly Douglas Fir with some Sitka and Alder. There was a grove of Myrtlewood down at the base (at the Day Use Area which also offers the a local bathroom) but we didn't think we saw any on the hike. The entire mountain is steep and rocky and doesn't hold much topsoil. With that and the big storms that come in from the ocean, there is a limit to how big a tree can get before it and all of its immediate neighbors get blown down, causing much ruckus on the side of the mountain and often impacting hiking on the trail. 

When you get to the top intersection of the two trails, there is a side trail that goes up to summit. The summit itself is devoid of trees. I am guessing they just can't get a hold before being blown down. The side facing away from the ocean was a trail cut (with chainsaw) through a number of big trees that had been blown down in the last few years. The view from the summit is gorgeous. It is south facing and you can see the rocky coast looking down past Gold Beach.  The Rogue river must be there someplace but I couldn't place it from up there. 

And we had Sun !! Such glorious sun. We had shed our outer layers on the way up the hill, and usually once on top you would have to layer up as you cooled down, but today, we could sit on the top of the world in the warm sun and just luxuriate. We were very tempted to take a little nap in the sun after we had finished our picnic. 

We came back down the back (east) side. Less sunshine, a little cooler, and a few places where we had to crawl over and under logs. But going downhill is usually much faster than up and we were warmed up, had our tracking poles out, and had a most enjoyable stroll back to the car. 

A great hike. A great view. Very few other hikers (though the size of the parking lot argues for crowds in the summer). 

Lincoln City Glass Blowing

Pretty Woman with Votive

Ok, this isn't exactly hiking or kayaking or other out-doors adventure, but sometimes, especially in the winter, you need something else to do on the beach. Perhaps something Hot.  Perhaps something 2400 degrees Fahrenheit! 

My partner and I are spending a few days in Lincoln city. The weather is exceptional for a Monday in January, sunny and 60 degrees. But when we were here last year it was 40 and pouring rain, so the fact that we scheduled some time to be indoors next to a hot furnace should not be held against us. We are visiting the Lincoln City Glass Center to spend an hour learning about (and helping to create) some glass doodads. 

My partner has decided to make a glass float. This is a colored glass sphere modeled after the glass floats that were used by Japanese fishermen to buoy their fishing nets. When the nets were lost or the floats got loose, they would float across the Pacific and fetch up on Oregon beaches to be found by Oregon beach combers. I am betting this is why the art glass blowing industry is located in the beach towns today. I am going to make a Votive. A votive doesn't have a cool backstory, but you can put a candle into it. 

These are Japanese floats from circa 1940 that were
found on the beaches or Oregon.
such floats are still found occasionally.

The way this works is there is a glass craftsman (artist?) that works with you. You pick out the shape you want (for the votive, for instance, you have some say over the shape of the opening) and the colors and pattern of the colors (I wanted blue-green swirl, Paige wanted green dots). Then you get to be out near the furnace with the craftsman during the creation. You get to twirl it around some and move it back and forth from the furnace to the workbench. The fun part, however, is getting to be right there as the craftsman explains the process for you and creates your object. 

Mine went like this:

0) Lay out little glass pieces in the colors you are going to incorporate into your object. For me is was a bunch of "warm color" fragments (mainly blue and green) and then another set of white for a swirl.

1) Get some glass out of the 2400 degree furnace on the end of hollow metal tube.

2) Let it cool a little while turning it constantly to keep it roundish.

3) Dip into the furnace again and pick up some more glass. Cool this again in the air.

4) Crunch the soft glass onto the blue-green fragment making the object into a square sided thing. Then crunch the white into the sharp edges of the box. 

5) Heat in a side furnace again. constantly turning. We are melting all of the colored fragments so they combine with the main part of the glass.

6) Push the glass onto the table rotate with force to put some swirl into it. Grab the end of the glass with a special pliers and clamp it down. This allows you to torc the object to get it turn some so you can add more swirl to the colors. Keep clamping and turning until you cut a little marble of glass off the end. 

7) heat again. a long time.

8) Use this wooden cup thing to shape the glass. I am suspicious that this step was just to give me more interaction with the object.

9) Blow some air into the tube and make a bubble of air in the glass. In normal times, this blowing would be done using ones mouth on the hollow pipe. But since it is covid, we used an air compressor and a rubber hose. 

10) heat again.

11) Add even more air. But this time, do it will heating the end of the glass with a hand torch. This makes the end of the glass softer than the main body so it eventually blows out, leaving a hole!!

12) heat again

13) now the artist uses a set of well... metal chopsticks. She spins the glass and uses the chopsticks to shape the hole into the opening of the votive. 

14) I don't know. Probably heat again. Sure, lets heat it again.

15) One more set of shaping with the chopsticks, then off to the side where I get to give the blow tube a little knock with a mallet that separates the glass from the tube. 

16) Now the artists gets a little piece of molten glass and makes a little stand for the votive which she attaches and stamps with a little logo. how cute. 

17) And she hands it to you and you go home.

18) Just Kidding! If she handed it to you, it would burn your hands AND the thermal shock of your cold hands would probably shatter the glass. What she actually does is move the votive (using insulated tongs) over to a holding oven where it will sit with the rest of the days creations at 900 degrees until the store closes. Then it will slowly cool all night and be ready for pickup after 10:00 AM tomorrow.

The Next Day. 

Wow. that was exciting. Now I get to take pictures of my Partner !!