I have driven to the Oregon coast on many occasions. A seventy-five mile drive from the suburbs, through farmlands, into the hills and forests. In an hour and a half you watch as all of the layers of civilization peel away, from city to wilderness, trading grays for greens. It's an easy trek to make, a bee line to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
Now, when most people think of a beach, they think fun and sun, bathing suits, and surfing. We have all of that, of course, but not in the abundance expected. What gives us beauty is the land itself, these remnants of once violent volcanic activity. The debris of a war between molten earth assaulting raging seas are ashes that have grown over with massive forests. The battles have calmed, but when I think about our beaches I always remember the wind. To what other coasts do people go wearing sandals and shorts with a coat? But it's great for flying kites.
Getting out to the beach cities is a strait shot down the Sunset Highway, an extension of US Route 26. This highway starts (or ends) when it meets Highway 101, which runs up the entire western coast of the US. On it's other end, the 26 heads out to terminate at the Idaho state line. Most of it's length is within the Columbia basin. The west end, however, is in this gaping hole in the basin. When driving west on this highway you will know the exact moment you have left the lands of the Columbia. Once you reach one of the highest altitudes through the Northern Oregon Coast Range on this road, you pass through the Dennis L. Edwards tunnel. This passage way is like a door from one basin to another.
On the other side of the tunnel you enter the basin of the Nehalem River, and the proper body of the Northern Oregon Coast Range. Most of these mountains serve as the border between the Columbia and the ocean on the western Oregon border. It houses several basins (some of which will be further blog fodder at a later time), but most of these lands do not belong to the Columbia. The Nehalem itself takes a strange course out of its mountains to the sea, like Pac-Man being chased by ghosts through a maze. Speaking of greedy gobbling, the forests of this basin are very heavily forested. I often find beautiful vistas utterly destroyed by fields of stumps. But what the forestry industry has done today cannot compare to what has happened in the past.
The Nehalem basin is nearly one thousand square miles. Today, more than half of it is state forest. But this forest is the result of one of the largest forest recovery projects ever. A series of fires over twenty years (enveloping the years of World War II), collectively known as the the Tillamook Burn, destroyed as much land area as is now under state protection. Fallout from such devastation must have seemed like the end of the world to those living in the Range. Such ash laden skies wouldn't be seen again until the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
These mountains are also home to Camp 18, a logging technology graveyard/museum and wilderness restaurant. It is also the home of what was once the worlds largest, tallest, and oldest Sitka Spruce tree. However, those same winds that make kite flying such a joy, grew to a gale force and knocked off more than half of its height. It seems the wars of nature are not yet at an end.
Next time we'll visit the large S-curve that takes the Columbia out of Oregon's most densely populated areas, around the Northern Oregon Coast Range, and finally out to sea.
Happy hunting,
Brett
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