Road Trip: Cannon Beach, Part 2, Ecola State Park
This is the second part of our trip to Cannon Beach in April. You can read part 1 here. View Kyle's video of our trip here.
There's no way we can go on a vacation and not explore the local hiking scene - it's just not possible. Earlier this week I shared the first part of our trip to Cannon Beach which involved a sweet lodge and lots of good food. Today I'm sharing my favorite part, our hike in Ecola State Park just a few minutes away from Cannon Beach.
The drive took us on a small, winding road through dense rain forest. Many of the trees trunks had a larger diameter than our bedroom and towered above with curtains of moss draping from nearly every limb.The park spans along 9 miles of coast line, and is best known for being part of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
We took the Indian Beach trailhead and did a 4-ish mile hike to see the Terrible Tilly Lighthouse.The trail was still very muddy - with areas almost as deep as my hiking boot at times. But the scenery was amazing, and everything was green. The trail climbed for a while, weaving through the coastal forest and along a ridge overlooking the ocean.
We came across a hikers camp, complete with little cabins and a fire pit. Just past the camp is the viewpoint for "Terrible Tilly" the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. This seemingly small lighthouse was built on a rock, nearly 1-and-a-half miles off shore. It was built in the 1870s and one of the engineers lost his life on the rocks. It is one of the most weather-exposed lighthouses in the world, one storm even landed a 130+ pound rock in the kitchen.It was closed in 1957 due to it's dangerous conditions and several lives lost. In the 80s it was bought and renovated to be a columbarium: a storage house for urns full of cremated human remains. That business was shut down in the 90s and today Terrible Tilly is a wildlife refuge - but many say it's haunted due its deadly history.
