Bayocean Spit Loop Hike

Overview

This sand spit was once the site of the City of Bay Ocean Park, conceived by a developer in 1906 and then lost gradually to the ocean as the north end became an island. The last home was destroyed in 1960 although the breakwater at the mouth of the bay allowed the island to become a peninsula once more. The hike description takes you first along the beach to the tip of the peninsula at Kincheloe Point. You return on an old road track on the bay side. If you want a shorter hike, go along the bay side first and pick up one of the trails heading through the dune forest to the beach for your return. Begin your hike at the Bayocean Parking Area, and take the sandy trail leading through the dunes toward the ocean. Scots broom, evergreen huckleberry, and stunted spruce and shore pine dot the grassy expanse. Head up the beachfront dune for a view south to Cape Meares and Haystack Rock at Cape Kiwanda and also north to Barview Jetty. Once on the beach, walk north. Little clouds of sanderlings may be foraging at the water line, and surf scoters duck in the breakers. Knolls in the middle of the peninsula, once islands, support taller spruces and pines. Salal and evergreen huckleberry are the dominant shrubs. Coming to the end of the spit, climb up on the jetty and watch the swells rolling into the bay. To return, head east through the accumulated driftwood towards a beacon powered by a solar panel, and pick up a gravel track from here. There's a view across to Barview County Park and the Barview stacks. Enter shore pine woods and then negotiate a washed out section of the track at an inlet. Skirt around the little cove and reconnect with the track down an alley of shore pine. The road passes an outhouse just south of Kincheloe Point and curves around the edge of Crab Harbor in a forest of spruce and pine. You'll soon pass a trail leading west scross the peninsula to the beach. Spruce, salal, evergreen huckleberry, and wax-myrtle dominate the thickets here, while alders line a mudflat exposed a low tide. Second and thir

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Photos

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250px-BayoceanSpitLoopMap

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250px-Shipwreck

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