Difference between revisions of "The Thumb via The Knoll Loop Hike"
From Oregon Hikers Field Guide
(Add hazard) |
|||
| Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
* Backpackable: No | * Backpackable: No | ||
* Crowded: On weekends | * Crowded: On weekends | ||
| + | {{Hazards|f=y}} | ||
=== Hike Description === | === Hike Description === | ||
Revision as of 17:37, 25 July 2017
- Start point: Roads End Trailhead
- End point: The Thumb
- Trail log:
- Hike Type: Loop
- Distance: 3.9 miles
- Elevation gain: 835 feet
- High Point: 550 feet
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Seasons: All year
- Family Friendly: Yes
- Backpackable: No
- Crowded: On weekends
|
Contents |
Hike Description
This short loop hike from Roads End takes you up along an elk–frequented ridge to a basalt formation known locally as The Thumb (or sometimes sacrilegiously as God's Thumb). There are spectacular views from here of secluded coves, offshore stacks, and across the Salmon River, the great grassy promontory of Cascade Head. The outward-bound leg of the loop begins on private land, so make sure you stay on the trail and respect all signs.
From the Roads End Trailhead, walk back to Logan Street and walk one black north to 61st Street. Follow this street as it curves to the left. Keep straight at Spindrift and then make a right on 63rd. Cross Neptune Drive and then walk up to the left on Port Drive, which curves left along a ridge lined with residences. Swing right where Port Drive becomes gravel and keep straight at Sal La Sea Drive. Pass the last house and reach a gate.
Walk around the gate and take a grassy track leading to the right (The main track leads to a quarry). Hike up along this old road bed under red alder and Sitka spruce with thickets of blackberry, salmonberry, and elderberry. Walk between two large spruce trees and look back to get a view of Lincoln City and Devils Lake. Reach the crest of the ridge, known in these parts as The Knoll, a Lincoln City Open Space, and walk back to get an expansive view to the south. Note that the local elk bed down in this meadow at night. Walk back along the crest to a grassy clearing and find the trail leading north along the ridge on your right. Hike through a mossy spruce forest and drop along the west side of the slope. Rise and drop to keep left on the crest at a junction with a trail coming up from the Villages at Cascade Head.
From here, you can see the Salmon River estuary through the trees. Pass a Forest Service boundary marker. Drop steeply down the slope and enter an expansive alder-lined meadow. The trail crosses the meadow and rises up a grassy slope. Drop into woods on the crest and pass another small meadow. The path rises and reaches another meadow, where it veers to the left. Reach a junction with a trail coming up from the private inholding of Camp Westwind and go left. The trail from here drops steeply down the edge of a cove, where you shouldn’t step too close to the edge, and then rises to the top of The Thumb.
Take time here to admire the views north across the mouth of the Salmon River to Cascade Head as well as south to Lincoln City. The Thumb is part of a basalt dike formed during the late Eocene. The small cove below was created when the dike was breached and wave action began to rapidly gouge out the much softer siltstones and claystones of the Nestucca Formation which the dike had been protecting. An even larger cove, formed in the same way, is just north of this one. Various stacks and rocks scattered below you near a secluded beach preview the eventual fate of The Thumb, which will become a isolated sea stack in time.
For the return, descend the steep, grassy slope of The Thumb and take the trail across the meadow below you. Enter a Sitka spruce thicket and cross a small creek. At a break in the trees, get a good view back to The Thumb. Pass through a salal thicket and undulate along the slope on a muddy tread. Cross a deeply incised brook and traverse in alder/spruce woods with an understory of evergreen huckleberry and sword fern. Descend a rocky road bed that can become a running creek. Pass a Forest Service trail sign on a tree and reach a gravel track. Go left here and head downhill through thickets of large elderberry bushes. Pass a locked gate where Logan Road meets Williams Court, and walk right down the slope on Logan.
Your first beach access point is just past 73rd Street, where there’s parking for three cars. Descend to the beach where a creek flows into the surf, and walk back to the Roads End Trailhead.
Maps
- Maps: Hike Finder
Fees, Regulations, etc.
- Dogs on leash
- Take care: there are steep drop-offs and unstable slopes
- Restrooms, interpretive signs, and picnic tables at Roads End Trailhead
Trip Reports
- Search Trip Reports for The Thumb via The Knoll Loop Hike
Related Discussions / Q&A
- Search Trail Q&A for The Thumb via The Knoll Loop Hike
Guidebooks that cover this hike
- none
More Links
Contributors
- bobcat (creator)