In our original plan, Day 9 was a short stretch, only 10 miles. In the end, we found a few more.
Walking out of Beverly Beach, we met another thru-hiker named Tanner from Dallas. He had just graduated from Georgetown and was taking a month before heading to San Franscisco to work for Google. Originally, he had planned to hike the Washington portion of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) but sections of the trail are still covered by snow. So he came south to do the OCT instead. He was a really nice guy that we would run into again down the trail.
We started out with 2 miles down the beach.
Much of the beach looks exactly the same as other parts but walking down the whole of it really brings out the interesting parts that others might miss.
Personally, I’ve never seen tortoise-shell rocks.
Or grassy “islands” in the middle of the beach.
As Yaquina Head came into view, we took a trail off the beach and walked the highway for a bit.
We were now in Agate Beach, heading toward the town of Newport. We ate lunch at a pizza buffet named Izzy’s then dropped down the Lucky Gap Trail back to the beach.
From Lucky Gap, we had 3+ miles along the beach until we could see the north jetty at Yaquina Bay. Here, we found an OCT marker which led us to a long set of concrete stairs that led to the state park.
In the park, we stumbled across a memorial to fisherman who had been lost at sea.
And the old lighthouse, which had only been in service for two years before a bigger one was constructed at Yaquina Head.
Continuing through the park, we turned east and could the see the Yaquina Bay Bridge.
Once we walked to the bridge and turned back, we could see both the north and south jetties. Past the south jetty was the campground where we were spending the night.
Before heading to camp, though, it was time for Beer:30 at Rogue Ales’ Bayfront Public House.
Here, we experienced some amazing “trail magic.” While sitting at our table, one of the servers approached us and told us that another table in the restaurant wanted to buy us a flight of beers. Wow! That made our day.
As we were walking out, we got to meet the people who blessed us. It was a couple from the east coast who live on the Appalachian Trail and routinely provide support to hikers there. They were thrilled to have now provided trail magic on both coasts.
After Rogue, we continued down the highway to a convenience store where we bought some groceries. Then, it was on to South Beach State Park where we had reserved a yurt for the night.
Day 9 mileage was 12.5 with 405 feet of elevation. Total distance to this point — 159.6 miles