Fort To The Sea Trail

 

A 15 minute drive from our campsite at historic Fort Stevens state park is the even more historic Fort Clatsop. Never heard of it? It is the place that Lewis and Clark spent their last winter after completing their epic journey from the Eastern baby United States to the pacific ocean, exploring the newly acquired lands of the Louisiana Purchase.  It makes sense that this place would be close to where we are staying since Lewis and Clark came down the largest West flowing river, The Columbia, and we are camped at the mouth of the Columbia. Clark and Lewis paddled their canoes up the little tidal creek that was just before the big turbulent mouth of the river. I need to check my history but what I remember is that they wintered near a settlement of indigenous peoples. They built a sort of lean-to structure that may have had a small perimeter fence. They called it Fort Clatsop sort of in the manner that I called my structures of sticks out in the woods a ‘Fort’ when I was 8 (Mine was called 'Fort Maple').

They spent the winter sitting in the gloomy rain of the Pacific Northwest, hunting Elk and Deer, Salting said Elk and Deer, and trading with the locals. I am sure the spreading of venereal diseases was one of the common pastimes.  The other big thing they did was to hike the 6 miles over the small mountain ridge to the ocean, where they kept a couple of guys stationed in some little shelter. These guys job was to keep a driftwood fire burning in order to boil seawater and make salt. The salt they needed to preserve the hunted elk meat that they needed for supplies to travel home. They shot over 130 Elk and hand stiched together over 300 pairs of elk skin moccasins. I am guessing you wear through those puppies quick on a long walk back to Virginia. Did they bring a big pot to boil the sea water? Or did they barter for a clay pot from the locals. There was a suspicious sign near the National Park that said “Clay Pit Trail”.  Evidently they used small pots they had brought along.

National Park? The area around where the Fort Clatsop is located is now a National historic area. It has a nice (currently under renovation but due to open next week) Visitor Center (where I am sure I could clear up my history questions) and a copy of the Original Fort (that I think was made from drawings and descriptions left behind in Lewis and Clarks notes). If I make something up, but then it turns out to be right, is that really making something up? 

Today we are going to hike the trail that the expedition people hiked to get from the Fort to the Sea. This was probably a trail used by the indigenous peoples at that time. Today it is a amalgam of different trails and roads and narrow rights of way that winds its way through a patchwork of different terrains. 

You start off near the Visitor center hiking through flat and pretty standard Sitka and Sword Fern. The trail is a standard woods trail and nice hiking. You cross the road the climb up a little hill. At the top of the hill is another trailhead, this one evidently for bikers. There is a bathroom there and a parking lot. There is a link here to other trails that head on up the Lewis river. We follow the main trail which is now a graveled path wide enough to be an old jeep track (which I suspect it is).  You follow this track for around a mile. There are side trails leading off that I may want to explore on some other day (the Kwis Kwis trail, in particular). The Gravel (bike designated) trail ends at the top of the hill and a nice overlook. There is a sign at the overlook that tells of the history of the North West facing view that you are enjoying. It mainly says that the lumber companies cut down all of the trees. The trees consisted of many varieties and species that are required to live together and make a healthy forest. In their place the lumber company planted only Doug Fir, which is relatively quick growing and good for the lumber industry. Then the Forest Service acquired the land and they are now in the process of naturalizing the area. In The Future the land will be all happy and natural again. Trust us. We won’t loan it  back to the lumber companies in 100 years for them to use for a few months or nothing.

Wow. Where did that come from? I don’t know, because just after this lookout, you enter the nicest part of the trail. Another 2 miles of wonderful descent through mature growth. Big nice trees. Shady walk. Lots of deer fern and sword fern and Huckleberry.  After a while you descend into a more flat area that has little fens areas with skunk cabbage and devils club. It is very pleasant and good hiking. There is some water flowing but not enough to filter for drinking at this time of year. 

a Nice bridge across one of those rolling dune lakes

A Maze of Cow stoppers

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The coast in this area is built of cycles of sand deposits that create repeating lines of high dunes and low areas. The further you get from the ocean, the more the dunes have become covered in dirt and are growing trees and such. The low areas are usually meadows, marshes, or cute little finger lakes, like the one at our camp where we went kayaking the other day. 

We now descend into this area. There are a number of nice bridges on the trail that you use to get across some of the largest wetlands. Now you come to another big sign post. There is a dirt road there but it doesn’t look like it is used. There is also another nice Forest Service pit toilet there. So handy! Clearly a lot of money was spent on this trail. The signage is great. The upkeep is great. And there are toilets and bridges where you need them! So nice. 

There is also a sign that says it is 3 miles to Sunset Beach. Our Destination. You are halfway to the Sea. 

This is also where the wonderfulness of the trail ends. The rest of the hike sort of sucks. First you go through a stretch of unhealthy forest. It is all Doug Fir, maybe 30 years old, and the trees are crowded together and have, as such, shed all of their lower limbs, which have made a mass of dead fall on the ground. A great place for a fire. Not many ferns or other undergrowth life. We do see a couple which appear to be hunting mushrooms in the debris. Seeing people hunting mushrooms is not uncommon as charrels grow in this area and sell for a pretty penny. They are also one of the easiest edible mushrooms to identify without accidently poisoning yourself. 

Next you come to the first strip of private property. There is a cow pasture with electric fencing off to your left. The property is trash strewn and not exactly scenic. At the end of it you come to highway 101. There is a nice paved path here that leads down the road a bit and then through a tunnel with a very nice façade printed with “Fort To The Sea Trail”. Someone spent a lot of money putting nice stone work up and making the tunnel look very pretty. And then they let blackberry grow up all over it and obscure it. 

Out the other side and you go down off the pavement onto a sandy narrow path. The trail now winds for the remaining 2.5 miles through a narrow carved out right of way between privately owned cow pastures and the Oregon National Guard training facility of Camp Rilea. So you have barbwire on your left and chain link topped with barbed wire on your right. The Right of Way is about 10 foot wide and it is not signed very well. We lost the trail once where it started to go through very constrictive wooden corridors designed to stop cows but allow hikers. Skinny hikers. It is sort of strange, this mixture of nice trail, with lots of money trail, and shit trail. Since we are hiking on occasion through cow pasture, the shit trail thing is literal. You hike for a ways out in this sort of barren place and then you come to one of those big finger lakes in the undulating landscape and there is this really nice big expensive footbridge. The bridges are clearly just for the trail and they look so out of place. If you hike this trail you need either a detailed map or a good piece of mapping software on your phone. There were at least 2 places where the correct turn was NOT where the main foot traffic seemed to go and the signs that marked the turns were either obscured by plant growth or non existent.  So. 2 miles of walking. Some of it is strange non-trail walking along beside the military base fencing. The sound of automatic rifle fire in the distance so reassuring. Some of it is nicer trail through wooded beach area forests. 

We finally came out at the parking lot at the end of the trail. It is a nice parking lot with a nice bathroom and good signage. I will say that this last 2 miles of trail did not look well trodden. One area through a grass run was barley trampled at all. I am thinking that not many people hike the beach end of this trail. This makes me think that this parking lot is one of the least used beach parking lots in America. I mean, you could park here and do the last half mile to the beach, just  like Lewis and Clark, or you could drive to the beach and park there. Much less far to carry your beach chair and umbrella. Do you think that Lewis and Clark carried their beach chairs and umbrellas all the way from the Fort every day?

I may come back here someday, mainly to remember to bring my National Parks pass and go for a good tour of the historic site. If I do, I will hike the Kwis Kwis trail loop that includes the nicer parts of the hike we just did. That seems like it would be more fun as I really like hiking in the coastal Sitka.