Garibaldi to Cape Kiwanda

Cloudy, high 56, low 52. Windy. Approximately 20-23 miles hiked.

While in Garibaldi, I decided to take the bus to Tillamook. There was very little shoulder on HWY 101 and per my maps, most of today is walking roadways. At least bussing to Tillamook will put me on beaches later in the day. I arrived in Tillamook fairly early and began walking west out of town on HWY 131.

The original route, per the Oregon State Parks website, is to roadwalk up to Cape Meares. The problem with this is that the Bayocean Road up to Cape Meares has been closed for quite sometime, never to be reopened. The road is permanently closed due to a long term, slow landslide that advances a few feet per year. There’s no way to stop it. Road engineers have surveyed the land and said it’s not possible to rebuild that road. There have been no updates on Oregon’s state parks website. The only other alternative is to take HWY 131 clear to Netarts Bay.

This would be the most dangerous road to walk so far, with no shoulders AND no real ditches in spots!! I had to look for traffic, then jog/run as best as I could with a back pack to get past these spots.

Shortly after the spot on the above picture, an elderly gal, near 70 years old, stopped and picked me up. She told me that she rescues hikers and bikers off of this road. I only had 2 more miles to go before hitting the beach again. She wanted to drive me around the tiny little community in this area and tell me about its history. I didn’t mind this, greatful to be off of that dangerous road. What was very interesting about her was that she lived much of her life as an Amish person, in Yoder, Kansas! I told her that I was from Kansas and had heard of the Amish community of Yoder!! She decided to leave the Amish faith and found her way to Oregon. I asked her if her family was upset at her decision to leave the Amish faith/way of life and she said no. She told me that’s one of the really nice attributes to the Amish in Yoder is that they respected her decision to leave, just as long as she continued to go to church, they didn’t care what denomination she was.

She dropped me off and I ended up on the beach, landing at Cape Kiwanda for the night at a camp. There were domestic bunny rabbits wondering around this site!! I had a heart to heart talk with the bunnies and told them that of they tried to chew through my tent, I’d be eating rabbit stew for breakfast!

At Cape Kiwanda camp, I talked to a gal camping there. She was a retired nurse and was riding her bicycle from Vancouver to Los Angeles. It sure was nice to talk to somebody! I haven’t seen any other thru-hikers so far, but Ive heard there are a few out here right now.

The sun shined for about 3 hours today. The further south I get, the more sunshine I see between the early morning, then afternoon costal fog.