South Depoe Bay Creek Loop Hike

Overview

Depoe Bay’s harbor, a small inlet connected to the ocean by a lava-walled 50-foot-wide chasm, is billed as the “smallest harbor in the world.” Beginning in 1937, a series of improvements deepened and widened the little bay so that boats could float at low tide. A short walk takes you from the town’s ocean front to the harbor and then, a nice surprise, up a densely forested creek. To make a loop, you’ll return along a bluff above the shoreline. Depoe Bay also promoted itself as the “Whale Watching Capital of the Oregon Coast,” and you complete the loop at the state parks’ Whale Watching Center at the north end of the Depoe Bay Bridge. If you want to keep walking from this spot, see the Depoe Bay Hike. Depoe Bay is named for “Depot” Charley, a Tututni (Lower Rogue River) Indian whose family was forcibly removed north to the vast Coast Indian Reservation, now the much-reduced Siletz Indian Reservation; Charley had been allotted the land that is now the site of the town. If you’ve parked on the west side of Highway 101, cross the street and begin walking east on Bay Street, the street just to the north of the Depoe Bay Bridge. You’ll pass along the side of a hill and descend to take a steel staircase down to the community hall. After crossing North Depoe Bay Creek, turn right to walk along the harbor seawall. You’ll get a good view across to the entrance channel and the Depoe Bay Bridge. A sign notes that a scene from the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed here. Past a fish cleaning station, you’ll enter Depoe Bay City Park. Follow a gravel track past a spillway with a fish ladder on South Depoe Bay Creek. Cross the creek over a wide wooden bridge and walk the lawn past a picnic shelter and play area. In the far corner of the park, you’ll see a sign for the South Depoe Creek Nature Trail. A gravel trail leads into a coastal wood of Sitka spruce, cedar, alder, and hemlock. The slowly flowing creek meanders over a sandy bottom to the left. Salmonberry and elderberry form dense thickets and sku

Trail Stats

Photos

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