2009-06-05 45 -123

Fri 5 Jun 2009 in McMinnville, Oregon: 45.9295027, -123.9279526 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Participants

• aperfectring

Plans

Aperfectring woke early to check the coords and take a drive out to the Oregon coast. Luckily the point for this graticule was just off of US-101.

Expedition

I started off driving US-26 out to Seaside. I was quickly swarmed by typical Oregon weather, a fine mist/rain and copious amounts of fog. While this would normally make me go oooh and ahhh while looking at forested mountainous terrain, driving through it in an unfamiliar car made me a tad nervous for a bit. I quickly got over it, and went to see what Oregonians call a beach. After much snickering, I took a couple pictures of the coast, and decided it was a little chilly for hanging around too long without a coat, so I continued on to the hashpoint.

The hashpoint was located on the entrance to a logging road. After I pulled in, I started to get some bad deja vu, until I realized that I had parked practically right on top of the point, instead of the point being a mile into the woods. I proceeded to take a couple of pictures at the site, including a panorama of the point (to be posted later). I also created a marker out of broken branches in the area, but my camera's batteries died before I could get a good picture of it.

I then continued my trip down the coast along US-101 for about 30 minutes. While stopping at Oswald West State Park, and hiking down to the beach, I noticed a trail heading off to some mountain in the area. Looking at the map next to the signpost, it showed that the mountain was a scant 2.5 miles (4km) away. However, it also said that over said distance, it went from basically sea level up to 1600+ ft (~500m), making it a 12.5% grade for a hike of 2.5 miles. Not to be deterred by simple things like my lack of hiking endurance and being completely unprepared for such a hike, I began on the trail. Shortly up the trail, huffing and weezing, and realizing that this trail is quite overgrown and not very suitable for the casual hiker, I aborted the mission, and returned to the beach. After admiring the cliffs and nearby mountains surrounding the small patch of dirty sand they called a beach, I returned to my car.

I then proceeded to drive further down US-101 to Tillamook, and turning on US-6 towards Portland, and returned home to eat and relax away the remainder of my vacation in the Portland area.

Gallery

• 2009-

  witty comments to come.