58 min
Overview
The Heceta Head Lighthouse shines the brightest beam on the Oregon Coast, and it was also the last lighthouse built in the system. Its completion in 1894 filled the gap between the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and the Umpqua River Lighthouse south of Reedsport. While it’s a short walk up to the lighthouse from the parking area at Devils Elbow Beach (See the Heceta Head Hike), you can enjoy more of this part of the coast by beginning your hike at Carl G. Washburne State Park. The route follows wide Hobbit Beach and picks up trails that wind through the spruce forest to the headland’s ridge crest before dropping to the lighthouse area. The inland return loop, using the Valley and China Creek Trails, takes you back to your car through deep mossy woods. Take the paved trail past the restrooms through a tunnel of stunted Sitka spruce and shore pine. Reach wide sandy Hobbit Beach, and head south, getting views of Heceta Head and, looking back, to Cape Perpetua. Colorful sandstone cliffs form a backdrop to the beach. You’ll soon cross Blowout Creek and pass some low rocks on the shoreline, often a resting place for the ubiquitous gulls. Cross a small creek, and see emergency locator number 93 at the bluffs. This is where the Hobbit Trail, part of the Oregon Coast Trail, leads up from the beach. Head up through a tunnel of salal and into moss-carpeted spruce woods. Switchback up twice into a dense thicket of rhododendron, salal, and evergreen huckleberry. Switchback three more times, and then make an undulating traverse to the junction with the Heceta Head Trail: this is just a few yards from Highway 101 and the Hobbit Beach Trailhead - you'll be returning here to complete the loop. Go right here, and drop above a leafy bowl of salal and Sitka spruce. Traverse up and switchback to drop again into another bowl. The trail traverses up and takes a couple flights of steps to switchback six times under older multi-limbed spruces cradling beds of leathery polypody ferns. Reach a ridge crest, and continue up to a bench and vie
Trail Stats
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292 m
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Photos
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