Last weekend I planned on taking my 10 year-old daughter on a one-night backpack trip. We were going to go to the Ollalie lakes area, but the forecast for smoke, haze, and red flag fire conditions had me casting about for other destinations. I settled on a hike to Threemile lake in the Oregon Dunes on the coast.
We started the hike at the trailhead in the Tahkenitch campground, after a 3 hr drive down the smoke-filled valley to Eugene and over to Florence. The trail climbs about 200’, undulates for about 1.5 miles and then descends for the remaining 1.5 miles to the lake. Early in the hike the trail traverses a hillside that is slowly creeping into the forest.
I'll let Amelia take the story from here:
The hike to three-mile lake was quit nice, with a sandy surprise!
There were great big sand slops; we had to cross them vertically!
- Dune encroaching on Forest
- Hiking across dune in Forest
[Dad: The lake is a long thin ribbon squeezed between two forested hills with fairly steep banks. ]
- Threemile Lake
Though I enjoyed our stay, we had to scrounge around to find a place to pitch the tent. Because, we, like many other people tried to escape the hazy weather in Portland. And it also appeared that there weren’t many campsites to being with.
But we managed to find a suitable site to pitch the tent:
- Campsite
Three mile lake looks half swamp half lake. The only way to get down to the lake is by three long steep sandy paths. Going down is SO fun, up… not so much.
- Threemile Lake Beach
- Slide to Beach
[Dad: We enjoyed a very red sunset, due to the offshore fog rather than smoke haze.]
- Sunset.
It was surprisingly foggy in the morning.
- Fog in trees
- Threemile Lake in the fog
- Threemile Lake in the fog
Later in the morning we went to the beach. We hiked across some (not really) dunes and through a sandy forest, then we walked along the beach. I walked through the water and my dad on the shore. There was no one else there.
- Ocean Beach
- Empty Beach
[Dad: I'll wrap up the TR from here.]
To return, we opted to hike a mile on the beach to Tahkenitch creek where we picked up the Dunes trail. You can also take a trail that parallels the coast through the fore-dunes. the Dunes trail then heads straight inland across loose sand and some open dunes before re-entering forest back to the trailhead.
- Trek across the Dunes
As you can see, the dunes here are slowly being captured by grass and trees and don’t appear to be moved around by the wind much anymore. It was sad to reflect that probably in 20 years they will be completely forested as the rest of the hike is.
The temp at the trailhead at 4 pm was 59 degrees, about 30 degrees lower than the temp in Eugene on the drive home! Amazing! The coast turned out to be a welcome escape from the smokey haze and respite from the heat. All in all, a nice cool hike on the coast.
