Anyone ever hung around Cape Lookout?

[Labrador]

I am looking to try and steal a night or two on the Oregon coast around the Cape Kiwanda/Cape Lookout area and I am wondering if anyone has ever hung around that area? If so, what tips do you have?

[Gary_R]

I am looking to try and steal a night or two on the Oregon coast around the Cape Kiwanda/Cape Lookout area and I am wondering if anyone has ever hung around that area? If so, what tips do you have?

hmm.. not sure never tried up there, or heard of anyone doing it..
We have enough trees around, but can you camp there?
Now I must know.

[Labrador]

The state park website list some formal campgrounds there, but I was of course hoping to get off the beaten path a little bit. A while back I stayed at Champoeg State Park and I asked the park ranger there about hanging there and he responded as though it was an everyday occurrence there. Not sure though if that is the attitude state wide or just simply his personnel opinion.

[Gary_R]

The state park website list some formal campgrounds there, but I was of course hoping to get off the beaten path a little bit. A while back I stayed at Champoeg State Park and I asked the park ranger there about hanging there and he responded as though it was an everyday occurrence there. Not sure though if that is the attitude state wide or just simply his personnel opinion.

Not sure but you should let me know

[EricFromPortland]

I have walked out to the end of Cape Look out twice and stayed at the Thousand Trails campsite 4 or five times. Here are some thoughts:
- For a day hang or a stealth camp out on Cape Lookout, head North at the B52 crash site and find a place. But, you will want to be dropped off as the parking lot day use only if I remember correctly.
- Just south of the look out trail is a boy scout camp, probably best to avoid but looks like a nice place.
- I have not been North of the lookout much, so I do not have a comment about that.
- Thousand Trail camp site (just North of Pacific City) is private and full of big RV's and not many trees. But, just across road (Hwy 1) is a road down to beach. With passenger car, you can park about 100 yards off Hwy 1, with 4X4 you can drive on beach. I bet you can find a nice quite place within 250 yards of the parking lot. But, you may want to check local rules as I do not know about overnights on the beach.

Sounds like a fun trip, let us know how it turns out.

Oh, the Pelican Restaurant on the beach at Pacific City is not bad.

Good Luck!

[HURTHEART]

I have hung out in that area for many years. I stealth camp, because of some of the people that live in the bushes along the coast mostly between Seaside and Lincoln City. Lincoln City has way too many people LIVING in the bushes! I find them scarry, they are in packs, and some of them have prison markings on their hands/faces.

Cape Lookout is dying, it is just a shadow of what it was when we lived in Oregon back in the 80's. I thought it was over use, but it has to do with the ocean reclaiming the land the park sits on. I had a long talk with the park ranger about the situation. They are moving the park to the east side of highway 101 in the next few years. Right now the park is a big swamp, water everywhere. During the Winter storms breach the remains of the dunes and flood the park and the marine water is killing the trees. Personally I think it is all the logging that has taken place, the trees are gone, nothing is growing to absorb the rain, the pine trees absorb huge amounts of rain water and then expire the moisture back into the atmosphere. That is not happening now days.

Eric From Portland, sounds good, there are some other little hidey-holes here and there, you have to get there early to find them vacant. There is not a problem with hanging in the State Parks, or the BLM Parks we do it all the time. We did not have any problems with the little critters getting into our stuff. If you hang around Beverly Beach or Fort Stevens, the Racoons are awful pests, at Beverly Beach they almost carried our site away with them. There were great numbers of the little cuties, hundred or more whole families, cute, noisey, nasty and fearless. Cape Look Out, is missing so many of the little creatures that once lived there, it is almost creepy now. So sad.

Cape Perpetula, is a lot farther south, but it has lots of places to hang, is safe, beautiful, inexpensive if you take a camp site, free if you stealth hang. Trails for different levels of ability, critters, mostly tenters. Camp sites are by a creek. You can hike up or down.

Anyway, have fun.