Hiking the C2C from Corvallis to the Coast
This spring, my friend and I spent six days hiking 60 miles from the Willamette Valley over the Oregon coast range to the Pacific Ocean. I kept a journal.
Here it is—but first, some notes. We took the C2C trail, following the bikers’ route because it meant fewer miles and a lot less elevation gain. Technically, this route measures 55 miles, but in practice we traveled 60 due to some extra back-and-forth. We got all the permits and followed all the rules to the best of our ability; I thank the volunteers and organizers who make this trail available, and Marys River Grange for giving hikers a place to camp before tackling the ten-mile, no-camping, thousand-foot climb over Marys Peak.
Note to fellow hikers: it was not hard to find water this early in the season (I continue to be very pleased with Sawyer’s 2 litre water filtration system), and the weather was cool. Our foot care regime revolved around Leukotape, which saved us a world of pain—highly recommended.
Day One
On Sunday, June 14, we met at Calocedrus’s place at 9am. Boots was our ride. He was sick from Ireland, so he wore a mask and so did I—I didn’t want to get that germ on a trail. He had a cup of tea while we weighed our bags; then he drove us to the trailhead: the confluence of the Willamette and Marys Rivers, where we dipped our hands in the water, then began to walk.
The pack was heavy at 37 pounds and I felt trepidatious about how my knees and hips were feeling. But together we moseyed along the path around the park, to where it veered south; then Boots went back, and Calocedrus and I went on alone.
A leafy tunnel under the road. A winding trail through secluded meadows dotted with homeless people’s shanties. Then the path along the highway: golden grass, noisy cars. Some respite under trees. We stopped to check our feet and have a snack, said hello to an admiring couple. We pressed on alongside the road again, and laughed about how hard tomorrow was going to be: getting over the shoulder of Marys Peak. Golden fields, soft blue hills, heavy blue clouds.
I was disconcertingly weary getting into Philomath. Walking the parkside path, we passed a little boy who asked if we wanted “a free sample” of cherries that he’d picked, which he was holding in a plastic cup—there are more on such-and-such a street, he said. Eventually we made it to The Dizzy Hen after a tired slog through city blocks, and sat outside 45 minutes waiting for a table, resting our feet. The food was great. We’ll need to go back.
Then we walked to Marys River Park and fell asleep on the grass behind the library. There was a delicious moment of dozing in and out in the sun, until the weather turned and woke us up. We sheltered under the eaves while the rain picked up and the farmer’s market bustled on out front; not knowing what the weather was going to do, I thought we should get going to the grange. It was a tired slog, and I was flagging well behind Calocedrus, but it turned out we could just as well have waited by the library because as soon as we set up camp, the rain stopped. We sat around a while, and when it started up again, we hid out inside the building, stretching on the hardwood floor and combing through the books. Judging by its newsletter and its twinkle lights, the grange is a happening place.
We walked back into town for dinner and drinks at Dirt Road Brewing. The rain kept up on and off, but we didn’t get soaked ever, at least. We got back to the grange, and I got into my hammock, and the night went by fast enough.
Day Two
Dear God what an ordeal.
We got up. Calocedrus’d had a rough night; her bivy sack didn’t stay dry and she had a hard time as we broke camp. I was chilly and my tarp was wet, which got me colder, but we got out quickly (they’d asked us to be gone by seven), leaving just as the renter arrived (we thought he was the grangemaster and thanked him for letting us stay). We stopped under a juniper down the road to make coffee; then on second thought Calocedrus hiked back to the grange to fill our water before we moved on for real. The juniper dripped on me. Juniper is not a great rain shelter. A man stopped by in a pickup to offer his place up Old Peak Road as a resource if we needed anything, which was kind. The coffee was nice to drink.
Then we got on. We walked six hours this day altogether. Two hours walk, half hour break, hour walk, hour lunch. Two hours walk, half hour break, hour walk, arrive—but it did not feel nearly that simple. The first two hours went well: we were moving steadily uphill, but unlike yesterday, I felt up for it. My muscles were stiff but knew what they were doing. After the steepest-yet stretch, just above a brief downhill, we paused to have a snack and rest our feet, knowing we’d have a gentler section to face once we got up again having stiffened. An angry chicken in the coop up the hill trilled now and then. I thought about the place on Old Peak Road where my great aunt and uncle had lived, which we’d walked by not long before. I think I recognized it, so strange and dilapidated.
The next hour started to feel long. The road was gravel now. I kept looking for the gate that would mark twelve miles or so; at last we reached it, passed through to where cars cannot drive, sat on the gravel overlooking a giant open space—once clearcut, now meadow—and ate lunch. Had the weather been warmer, I would have liked to take a nap there, but the spells of sunshine were intermittent with sprays of raindrops and a stiff, heavy breeze. It was chilly.
Then we got up and walked into the hardest section yet. For the next two hours, the path meandered through woods, uphill, downhill, and flat. It was beautiful and leafy. But it was neverending. At one point we passed a kiosk that said we were finally at the twelve-mile mark, which was discouraging because I’d believed our lunch site to be that. We walked on and on, and now instead of feeling that my muscles knew this game and could make do, I felt I’d already walked four miles over three hours up a mountainside and had yet to cover six more. I don’t know why this middle stretch was so hard in itself; Calocedrus thought maybe the downhill sections were the problem. I listened to songs play and replay in my head. Every now and then we’d pause to stand and drink. Once, Calocedrus proposed to take a break, but as we started to take packs off it felt wrong; we had to reach our next stopping point first or lose hope. Camping was prohibited here, and anyway, there was no water.
A pack of bikers appeared ahead, and I asked them how long to the gate: not far, a mile, pretty close, they said. On and on we walked, and at last, the gate appeared. We rested on the rock beside it for half an hour. Calocedrus’s toes were all blisters. Sitting there to rest was uncomfortable but I sat there, put on a little mosquito spray for the first time, took care of my feet, and let time pass.
Then it was on to the last leg. Past the gate, the trail met Woods Creek Road. Turn after turn after turn after turn we climbed. Every turn, I hoped to see the gate and parking area of the summit; every turn the answer was no, plenty more road to climb first. The body kept asking for rest or care, and had to keep moving instead. Hope and pain dissolved into a background static of nothing else but endurance.
Then it was there, the summit.
We turned the corner, laughing a little, into the woods where we could camp, and found the brook where we could refill our water, and roved about, and chose a campsite. By four o’ clock, I think, we were here. By five o’ clock, we were leaning on the conelike base of a big fir, drinking hot cocoa. It was a long, weary, peaceful evening. The water filter was going slower than expected, troublingly. The cook pot spilled. We rested our feet, and Calocedrus shared her sleeping bag quilt as the temperature dropped, and told me the first half of The Count of Monte Cristo from memory. Eventually she cooked dinner, and we ate. Then I refilled our water again and hid our food away from camp, and we got into our beds to sleep.
Day Three
It started out well, at least. We didn’t have to break camp immediately, so I took my time getting out. My filter had worked after all; the full bladder was big and tight like a balloon. No bears had marauded. I did some sprint drills to warm up before we set out, and they really helped, both with the chill and the stiffness.
The first few legs of the journey were beautiful and optimistic. Calocedrus’s feet were blistered, so we took it slow, but the roads between ferns were lovely and we walked together and talked. Funnily—I did not know I had reception—I got a phone call from an account asking an administrative question that I couldn’t answer just then, and they laughed when I told them why. The road shaded and brightened; it wound over an open space of managed timber forests, a huge view of hill and mountainsides. I kept thinking this would be fun to come back and do with King Sturdy sometime, or as a day trip from summit to Big Elk with King Sturdy and Shortshanks. We passed a little fenced area there on the top of the clearcut—a family cemetery, of all things.
The road got longer after that; things were still good, but I felt we had to have gone farther than the map said we had. Just after the gravel got really thick, we climbed a hill and came out of the woods at a gate and a kiosk, and the air smelled different, like desert, like somewhere east of the Cascades. The gravel was two-inch or bigger and rolled under every step, but the flowers and the gorges we could see were beautiful.
After two hours, a little before Shot Pouch Creek, we stopped for a rest and a snack. Soon the road became a trail (at last, we knew exactly where on the map we were), and we stopped again around three hours’ walking for a short lunch. My water filter was working much faster now that it was primed, I was pleased to find, just as I remembered it doing in the past.
Then we got up, descended a series of tight switchbacks to the bottom, met an unmarked road, and began the day’s ordeal.
The road would become Marys River Road, go through Harlan, then turn off to get to Big Elk Campground where we had planned to meet up with Boots. What was hard to accept is that by this point, we weren’t even halfway through the day’s journey. The unmarked road was gravel and hard to walk on. We walked endlessly, to the gate that marked Marys River Road; then we walked even more endlessly past it.
I honestly don’t know which day was harder, two or three. That road just wouldn’t end. It wasn’t a straight climb; it was rolling, and the homesteads of Harlan were gorgeous: rippling waves of grass between the steep little valley hills. But the gravel was hard to walk on, my feet were thoroughly sore, and have I said already? that road just wouldn’t end. It was five miles from start to finish but it felt like seven or eight, with foot pain acute and distracting at first—every step an event; later, a constant note. We took one break, sitting on the gravel hoping cars wouldn’t come. Then we stopped taking breaks, because the pain of starting again was too hard. One small step, one small step, watching the mile markers go by (mile 3 … mile 2 … mile 1). Harlan itself was charming; I was glad to have reached it. Then, the “hikers next two miles” sign (another two miles?!), then the “Big Elk in one mile” sign (not another mile). Near the end, Boots and the kids passed us in the car. I was so happy to see them. They parked and walked back to meet us, the kids running for a hug, and then we were there, at camp.
The pain continued, however. It was hard to move, to walk. We drank hot cocoa and looked at Boots’s pictures from Ireland, and tried to eat dinner, and sat by the fire Boots had made. The kids set up their tent and ran around and had antics. I was glad to see them. But the thought was raised, had been raised on the trail, should we keep going? What for? This level of pain is not a good in itself.
At this point, we’ve walked 33 miles and climbed about 1500 feet in three days. Is that enough? All I can say right now is that we don’t have to answer that question tonight.
* * *
While we’d been walking, I kept looking for something to occupy my mind. A few songs replayed in my head from “Songify the News,” not unwelcome. I listened to my own song “Keep on Walking” in my mind. I figured out that if you counted this many sets of that many paces 100 times, you’d have something near a mile. I thought now and then that if nothing else, at least I could have interesting thoughts about how one moves through life and ordeals, but I didn’t have many interesting thoughts. My legs held up, thankfully, but my feet were inconsolable, and by the time we reached camp my legs felt pretty wooden too.
I don’t know what happens next.
Day Four
We decided to go on. Calocedrus was on the fence in the morning, weighing the limits of the body against the heartbreak of bowing out. We sat across from each other at the picnic table sipping coffee. She had tears in her eyes.
Then she got up and said her flipout was over, and we got ready to go on. Boots and the kids packed up while we sorted out what to take forward and what to leave with them: extra food, trash. My pack already feels lighter, even with a full water bladder.
There are things I want to remember. The leafy stopping place along the road where we took our first break yesterday, under bigleaf maple and alder, where I stretched on my back in the sunlight. The beautiful dead doe lying on her side by the highway between Corvallis and Philomath on day one, her even brown body and perfect feet. The meditations, even if not terribly interesting, on how to go on. How to keep going. Before we left camp this morning, I went down to Big Elk River and sat beside it a while, and made a song. Its clear water and brown bottom were traced by shapes moving across it, like the shapes inside a lava lamp, from light and shadow.
River hold my hand
I am here for thee
Let me hear from the
Unhurried light that warms my hand
Make it clear to me
As the light
Upon
The sand at the bottom
Of your stillness
Where your faces
Slide like shadows
In the shallows
We walked. The road was doable. It was uphill at first through lots of shade, then varied through hot sun, sometimes flat, sometimes very steep. We stopped a little after two hours. Calocedrus was hurting, and hated needing to stop. I was starting to get footsore again, but otherwise I thought I was doing okay.
We walked on, using time to mark distance, half an hour every mile. The landmarks went by, the trail junctions, the place where we could’ve got water if we’d wanted to hike down and up again several hundred feet (we didn’t). We walked until we reached Flynn Creek, which was luckily accessible. The water flowing under the road pooled on the upstream side in a clear, deep shallow, so beautiful.
We had needed to refill before we could stop for the night, but by the time we got to Flynn there was simply nowhere to do so—so we walked another mile or two between the steep, dense uphill and the steep, dense overlook on the river, until we teed into the Thousand Line Road, where the no-camping signs began. So we doubled back and camped in some trees just off a clearcut. It’s notable how different these last miles felt from the last miles of yesterday. Coming into Big Elk, we just had to get there, but beyond Flynn Creek, every step was chosen. We could have stopped anywhere, only there was nowhere good, so we kept going.
Overall, this day’s walk was the easiest yet. We put in nine miles and climbed 1000 feet, but I feel we paced it better, and the roads were largely shady. For hours I walked along noticing the plants and, with Calocedrus’s help, getting a little better at identifying them; listening to the songs in my head; and finding that my muscles were willing to work. I did get footsore, though. We made our camp in a little stand of young trees just up a ridge from the clearcut road, just out of sight, and cooked on a stump.
Calocedrus’s body was unwilling to eat. Mine was just tired. But getting into my hammock afterward, my feet were actively hurting, and although all I was doing in that moment was lying in bed, the pain that lay with me made even stillness feel like an activity. I didn’t put up my tarp, risking rain. But it didn’t rain. The birds stayed up late and got up early. I enjoyed listening to them talk, looking at the filmy cloud in the evening sky and hoping I would stay dry all night.
Day Five
We were out of camp by eight fifteen. It was a good site, but I was antsy to go. I felt uncomfortable there somehow. Over breakfast, we saw elk on the clearcut hill: disappearing over the ridge, surprised by our being there; then later drifting back over again to browse. No bears.
Setting out, I felt pretty good. We stopped pretty soon for water; I picked a way down to a brook running under the road where the current was strong and the bags filled easily. Then we walked for three hours, keeping a pretty consistent pace, watching the mile signs on the road tick by. The 500 foot climb was not too hard. The road wound between clearcut and forest. The downhill was winding and lush, and not too steep, at least not as steep as others we’d seen, where I had felt I was walking in small stiff-legged steps like a toddler. I sang songs in my head, and sometimes out loud, walking by myself well ahead of Calocedrus. I revised the lyrics to “Keep on Walking.”
Keep on walking
Though the body’s aching
Keep on walking
Though the feet are sore
Keep on walking
I’m gonna get through the shaking
It’ll take more than quaking
To keep me from that doorWon’t you walk beside me
Lord I’m weary
Walk beside me
Help me on my way
Let my foot be steady
For this step I’m taking
Keep my frame from breaking
Help me find my wayKeep on walking
Though the sky is falling
Keep on walking
Though my eyes are wet
Keep on walking
Don’t start complaining
It’ll take more than raining
To make me stop up yet
We stopped just shy of three hours at the bottom of the hill, where it met the water. The little rivers were beautiful, one joining the other, so clear and leaf-shadow-dappled, with deep generous pools and a horde of tiny snails on the river rocks just under the bubble.
We walked on for another two hours along the north fork of Beaver Creek, both of us thinking this would be a fine place to live. The valley seemed so generous.
With six miles left between us and the coast we stopped for a break and looked at the map. We figured if we walked a few miles further, we could make it to a place where the road just touched some National Forest Service land, and we could camp. Everything else around was private. So we walked on—into the day’s ordeal.
Calocedrus’s blistered feet were spikes of pain by the end of it. We wound between farms and woods, passed the five mile marker, then the four; we passed Elk Horn Road and made it to the Forest land only to confirm what I’d hoped wasn’t true: it was inaccessible. It was a wall of impassable brush; or straight up, unscalable; or both. There were no other options. There was no going on, or back.
But there was a road snaking up into the land just behind the green plot on the map, which I thought might get us something, at least. The alternative was to lie down behind the tall grass on the road’s edge. So we set out, and a little ways on, luck chanced. Just off the road was a little clearing up a relatively clear bank. I scrambled up a ten-foot wall of earth and found a mossy refuge under a young hemlock, surrounded by alder trees and vine maple. Calocedrus scrambled up too, and we camped, exhausted.
* * *
Things I want to remember.
The low cool smells of bottomland. The warm, humid smells of bottomland.
The cool walls of air moving toward us under a shelf of mist. The high, dry smells at the top of the hills.
The sudden, persistent wind coming at us from the coast, cool and strong, and that smell of sea.
Day Six
I woke in the night to a chorus of frogs, the true night owls of the woods. They’d sing and sing (or argue) before running out of steam, and there would be a silence — a ribbit, a silence — a ribbit, a counterpoint ribbit, then the whole crowd would get going again and the night club was hopping. I couldn’t sleep for a while, feeling ill at ease, thinking of cougars (though no one could have reached us where we were without crossing a wall of brambles uphill of us and making a lot of noise). In the morning, everything hurt, and I didn’t want to get up.
But we got going. We were walking by half past eight. I was grateful for that camping spot, the armchair-like seat between roots all padded with fluffy moss, the sheltered circle, the sheltering trees. We walked a mile, then a little more, stopped at a public restroom on state park land (bear sighted June 4! cougar sighted June 6!), and kept walking. The mile markers ticked by. The ocean wind picked up. The wetland stretched to left and right, with a Trump sign and a call to get rid of the creek’s dammed water (no instructions as to how). The road was paved. Soon there was a shoulder. We kept marveling at how wild it is that we did this, that we made it.
Why did we do it?
Bragging rights sure, but not primarily. To know oneself better? To know the land better; to understand one’s relationship to the land we live in? To know that we could. To be able to know that later.
We reached the crossing of Highway 101, the wind-stripped coastal trees, the signs to Newport and Waldport. We hustled across the highway between cars, and wended a way through the park toward the beach, cursing the signs for leading us the long way around. Then, the ocean.
We walked to it, touched it. Took our shoes off and walked in it, so warm. Ran back to save our bags from the tide, just coming in. Calocedrus lost her water bag clip and miraculously found it again before the sea had a chance to take it. We unbandaged our feet and walked in the water again, a feeling of healing. The wind was a memory, the feeling of trips to Yachats years ago. Calocedrus asked what I was feeling and if there was a word for it. I said this wind was the word for it.
She headed back up the beach to nap in the sun and I continued to walk back and forth through the water, the memory of childhood in the kick of my feet against its current, sometimes shaking with something like tears, though my eyes were dry.
I thought, what does it mean? And then I saw the little rock, brownish red and dotted with tiny holes. If you put it in a tumbler, it would look like the agates my grandma had a jar of when I was a kid, true treasure gems to me at the time.
Agate from the ground
Who’ve rolled around, around
Revealed yourself to me
And offered now to be
A little sign of good
That I was one who could
A little while at least
As long as life shall last
Returning to the sea
For you will outlast me
I stood in the water rolling the words around until they settled, then held the rock and spoke them to it. Tears.
Then I turned around, and there was King Sturdy running toward me through the sand, and Shortshanks running just behind.