Where the River Meets the Ocean

Dear Trail Friends,


The map to the left shows the route I will follow for the first two weeks. of my walk on the Oregon Coastal Trail (OCT).

Chris and I are just back from a wonderful month in Italy, and I am in a frenzy of research, preparation, and training for the OCT.

The two of us will drive to Astoria, Oregon, on June 21, and I will begin my solitary walk at the tip of Clatsop Spit (the part of Fort Stevens State Park that extends the furthest north, on the south jetty of the Columbia River, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean) on June 22.

Chris will meet me in Newport (about 9 inches down from the top of the map, and 3 inches up from the bottom, and about 145 miles into my hike – I am taking this walk nice and slow) on July 5, and we will drive back to Seatac (after an overnight visit with dear friends in Corvallis) and fly East for a grandson's wedding.

The OCT differs in many ways from other trails I have walked. It is not a wilderness trail, and it does not have as many thru-hikers or as much history as either the PCT or the AZT. When I asked Bonnie Henderson – author of the authoritative guidebook and blog on the Oregon Coast – if there were any trail angels on the OCT, she responded that she did not know of any.

The absence of trail angels on this walk saddens me. My encounters with trail angels have been among the most moving experiences of my life on the trail, especially on the AZT.

So I am asking you – just in case one of you may have a friend or family member who lives in a town along the Oregon Coast, who you guess might be just aching to "try out" for the role of trail angel. The role calls for warmth, generosity, and a huge capacity for joy in service. The reward is vicarious adventure, and often surprising soul-to-soul connections.

On a practical level, trail angels can help hikers in several ways. They can host hikers (for example, yours truly) by offering shelter, a bed, a shower, use of their washer/dryer, maybe even dinner and breakfast. They can receive and store resupply boxes for a hiker to pick up at their home. They can provide transportation for shopping.

Trail angels can also offer rides (in this case rides are especially helpful in the many areas where there are gaps in beach walks and trails, and I will have to walk along the road, which often means walking along the busy Pacific Coast Highway.) Trail angels with boats can ferry hikers across some of the rivers that otherwise require long walk-arounds on the road. If the trail angels aren't wildly rich, and if they feel comfortable accepting donations, they can accept a bit of cash from a visiting hiker to help defray their expenses.

So – if you know of anyone you regard as a latent trail angel, just waiting to spread their wings, please let them know about this potentially life-changing opportunity. If they are interested, have them contact me either by email or through the blog. (If they only want to be a trail angel for me, and not for other hikers, that's fine. If they want to support other hikers as well, I can help them to make the necessary contacts.)

Meanwhile, back to the trail plan. Chris and I will drive back to Newport on July 10 (where we will spend a night together at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a literary hotel with a reputation for wonderful food and books (and no wifi!) in the Herman Melville room. (I found photo 1, a white humpback whale, on the internet.)

Chris and I will probably spend much of the day July 11 wandering the beach together. I will then spend my first night back on the trail at South Beach campground just a couple miles south of Newport, and begin walking again in earnest July 12.

Speaking of Herman Melville (whose room we will be staying in),  I first read Moby Dick when I came across a copy in a cozy one-room community library during my stay at an artists community in western Massachusetts in the late 1970s. I just reread Moby Dick a few years ago. Herman Melville knows how to write about the mysteries of the sea – mysteries to which I hope to draw close  on this walk.

I am grateful to be able to undertake a solitary walk along the Oregon coast, and at the very same time to share my walk with so many deep and responsive kindred spirits. Thank you, as always, from the bottom of my heart for your willingness to walk with me in imagination.

I can't help thinking, when I write "the bottom of my heart," of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, the great ocean I will soon be walking alongside. Thinking of the Pacific Ocean's bottom inspires me to think of "depth" in a more concrete –or should I say more fluid? – way. I like imagining strange and wonderful creatures swimming the dark depths of the human heart.

I found the deep sea fish photos above on the internet:

Photo 2 is a barreleye fish. Several species of deep-water fishes are called "barreleyes" because their eyes are tubular in shape. Barreleyes typically live near the depth where sunlight from the surface fades to complete blackness. They use their ultra-sensitive tubular eyes to search for the faint silhouettes of prey overhead. See "Mystery of deep sea fish with tubular eyes solved," https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223150331.htm

Photo 3 is a deep sea anglerfish.  They are known for their glowing lures, which they use to attract prey close enough for them to grab and devour.

Photo 4 is a bathypelagic tubeshoulder fish.  They live in the bathypelagic zone – from Greek βαθύς (bathýs), deep – (also known as midnight zone) which is part of the pelagic zone that extends from a depth of 1000 to 4000 meters (3300 to 13000 feet) below the ocean surface. It lies between the mesopelagic above, and the abyssopelagic below. I find myself reflecting that 13,000 feet is almost as far below sea level as I was above sea level when I stood at Forester Pass, the highest point on the PCT at 13,500 feet. It helps me appreciate the scale of the ocean.