Nehalem Beach Camp and Hike

Nehalem Beach State Campground is one of the larger campgrounds in the Oregon State Park System. It has 6 big loops for RV-Trailer-Car camping. The spaces are all pretty big and all paved and come with water and electric (no sewer is available). There are also a number of Yurts. I think the reason they don't havre sewage is that the area is low lying and prone to some minor flooding when it rains really hard (as it might do at the beach).  Most spots have nice shade trees but ours didn't and that day it hit 95 degrees. 95 degrees on the beach in early May. That is Crazy. The next day was back to 60. 

The camping spots are just on the other side of a nice wooded sand dune from the beach, so a 5 to 10 minute walk gets you there. It is an Oregon Beach, which means that it won't have very many people on it even during busy times, and since it is like 4 miles long, you can always walk down toward the Nehalem River until you get far enough away from people for your own personal liking. 

Never Seen A Woolly Bear Eating before

We had come as a practice SCAMP trip and to do some hiking. We thought we would do Neahkahnie mountain but just weren't up to it. Instead we drove out to the day use center at the South end of the road to the spit and then hiked along the spit to the mouth of the Nehalem river. It wasn't exactly an exciting walk. Most of the time you are down amongst scrub oak and Scotch Broom so you can't see too much except some of the local mountains. But still, it was pleasant and when we got the 2.5 miles to the river, we turned right and walked out to the beach. There was a LOT of driftwood out their piled up against the rock jetty that runs out into the ocean. 

We then walked back along the beach until we found the cross trail back to our car. The hot wind of the day before made a strange thing on the beach, the tide line was full of dead and dying insects. Large flying ants, beatles, lady bugs, wasps, spiders. Very strange.

Bugs On the Water

And the walk back through the Dunes we spotted part of a large herd of Elk that roam around there. The people 5 minutes before us got a good view but I think their dog scared them off. We just saw a couple of heads sticking up from the grass where the herd had laid down for the evening. Anyway, we ended doing over 5 miles and we didn't even start at the beginning of the trail. Much of the trail system around this park you can access by Bike and there is also an OK boat ramp where you could launch Kayaks to go explore the bay (check the tides. Don't get washed out to sea or stuck on the substantial Mud Flats in the Bay). Hell, there is even a little airport where people can land and use a special primitive campsite. Imagine flying your private plane in to use their primitive campsite. I guess those guys don't tow big trailers behind their planes. 

Elk Head