Mt Hebo, Feb 28th

The guide for this hike doesn’t even get close to what you actually get. Mt Hebo is usually recommended as nice hike with amazing views from the top that can extend to the Cascades on the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West. It does warn you that these views are a bit elusive as it’s difficult to get a clear enough day to enjoy them. The other highlight of this place is that there used to be a naval Radar Station during WWII. All that sounded interesting enough to try it out so I organized a group of people and headed that way. Finding the trail was not difficult at all as it starts from a small but beautiful lake in a campground. I guess in the summer this place is full f people but considering is very early in the season, we only saw one group of people on our way out. What the guide doesn’t tell you is that you have to hike thru one of the most beautiful coastal forests I’ve seen. It might have been the perfect weather, but the ferns and moss covered trees were just incredible. It got to a point that the green color was almost hurting your eyes. Shortly after, as we were gaining elevation, the forest changed completely to a more uniform, tall, second growth forest with a thick fern covered floor. Although there were may trees and lots of ferns and vegetation, you could still see far ahead. The other interesting finding in this forest was the silence, no road noises or anything like that. Roughly half way up, we got to the road (which is intended) but on the other side we missed the trail as it was a bit obscured by some shrub. Instead, we continued on the old access road to the antenna site. This road goes around the west side of the mountain and eventually gets to the top. From there we just crossed the grass field to the north side where the real summit is and were welcomed by some nice expansive views to the coast. After taking a bit of time to have lunch and enjoy the views, we went to South Point to explore and then back to start our descent back to the cars. Trying to find the trail, we followed what looked like an animal path but ended up loosing it, so we had our fair share of bushwhacking to get to the trail again (and that’s how we noticed the trail we missed on the way up). Once back down, we circled the lake to take some pictures before getting back to our cars. As it’s customary, some of us went out for dinner on the way back so we opted for the Pacific Ocean loop that takes you around the coast. There, we stopped at a restaurant sitting right on the beach in front of the Haystack. As you’ll see in the pictures, we ended our hike with a beautiful sunset on the coast.