Miles Hiked Overall: 279 (449 km)
We hiked 13.4 miles from China Creek to Boice Cope County Park. The wind was blowing like crazy but at least it was sunny!
Today was deemed in both books we have on the Oregon Coast Trail as having "the worst sand in all of Oregon." Let's just say, the day didn't disappoint. The sand was so course and so soft...ugh. It's hard to tell but this photo shows a footprint...its hard to move forward very quickly when each step sinks you down a few inches. If there was ever a hike that was a total slog, this was it. Also, the photos don't show it well, but the first 9 miles the beach had a fairly steep slope which made it harder hiking with your left foot lower than your right foot for several hours.
It was so hard that Mike made mile marker signs in the sand every mile for inspiration. Also in this photo are just some of the 16 perfect sand dollars (my absolute favorite) we found today. One positive on walking on a completely remote and secluded part of the each is you get the best pickings of the shells! There are no access points on this section other than our starting and ending points, so you get very few people. We met one group of people in about 6 1/2 hours on the beach. This was a group of 4 backpackers heading south. They had started yesterday in Bandon and were headed for the California border.
Here I am having tea. When I'm by myself, I eat very little and just pick up whatever the store has for treats. When I'm with Mike, I get soup and a fresh bagel for lunch along with hot tea and cookies made by Matthew! Gotta love it.
The guide book made the crossing of the New River which was about 11.5 miles into our hike a big deal, saying you needed to cross at low tide. We did get there within 30 minutes of low tide, but it was anticlimactic. It was ankle depth at the surf line, and mid calf where we crossed in the middle of the beach. It was also relatively slow moving. At high tide we still could have crossed up on the beach and only had water maybe knee deep. By contrast, the Sixes River that was on yesterday's hike would probably have been a chest deep crossing in very swift water at high tide as the water was several feet deep just inland from the surf line - a recipe for disaster. We were thankful for the easy crossing, but also a little disappointed as we thought we were going to have a challenge at the end of the day.
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