Arrived at the Pacific Ocean

We continued on our trip following the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail, crossing Idaho into Washington and Oregon. And, yes, we arrived at the Pacific Ocean, near Astoria, OR, completing our adventure, in 24 days, driving 3725 miles. More on that in a future post.

This section of the trip started out by going over Lola Pass and following the Clearwater River, on Hwy 12. This is a wonderful drive through the Bitterroot Range, in stark contrast to the Lewis and Clark expedition’s 11-day ordeal of deep snow, steep ridges, fallen timber, and near-starvation. Along the way, we stopped to hike an easy unnamed SOTA summit (W7I/IC-321).

The Clearwater River is the first river that Lewis & Clark floated on the west side of the Continental Divide, which later feeds into the Snake and Columbia Rivers.

We also did a SOTA activation of Beacon Rock (W7W/LC-163), which is a unique landmark sticking up right next to the Columbia River. It would be a serious challenge to climb, except for the steps and handrails that have been installed, literally hanging off the side of the rock. WA7JNJ produced a good video that provides an overview of this summit. We were happy to work a number of stations on 2 meters (FM and SSB): ND7Y, KG7WED, K7ATN, K7AMM, & NR7Y.

The expedition used dugout canoes to float the river Columbia at a fast pace. They had to portage a number of places to avoid rough water. However, Lewis wrote in his journal that they took a number of risks in the rapids because they were anxious to get to the ocean.

Once we arrived at Astoria, we camped at Fort Stevens State Park for three nights. This is a large Oregon state park, with 4,300 acres of forest, dunes, wetlands, lakes, and shoreline. With 482 campsites, it is one of the largest campgrounds in the US. The campsites are laid out nicely with good roads, paved pads, and plenty of trees.

Fort Clatsop

The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park has a recreation of Fort Clatsop, based on Clark’s sketches.  The Corps spent a dreary winter here from Dec 1805 to Mar 1806, where it rained almost every day. The recreation is well done and provides a good feel for the type of living accommodations.

 

The End of The Trail

Cape Disappointment is the first place that Lewis and Clark touched the Pacific Ocean, so in my mind this is the End of The Trail. The Cape was already named by a British fur trader looking for the Columbia River, which he was disappointed to not locate.

 

Seaside Oregon has a statue in town that claims the honor of being the End of the Trail. This claim is based on the fact that part of the Corps set up a camp here with the purpose of extracting salt from the ocean. This makes it the western most campsite that the expedition occupied as it was further west that Fort Clatsop. Anyway, there is a nice statue of the two explorers and the dog Seaman here.

Parks On The Air

Besides the two SOTA activations, we added 9 more POTA parks to the list for this trip, all in Oregon and Washington. We maintained our usual habit of working 20m SSB and 30m FT8, sometime during the day.

Date	Park	State	Data	Phone	Total
25-Sep	US-4572 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail	US-WA	0	13	13
26-Sep	US-4572 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail	US-WA	0	12	12
26-Sep	US-3158 Beacon Rock State Park	US-WA	0	12	12
27-Sep	US-9978 Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area	US-OR	0	11	11
27-Sep	US-4572 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail	US-OR	0	11	11
28-Sep	US-4572 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail	US-OR	16	0	16
28-Sep	US-2829 Fort Stevens State Park	US-OR	16	0	16
29-Sep	US-4572 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail	US-OR	21	0	21
29-Sep	US-2829 Fort Stevens State Park	US-OR	21	0	21

 

At The Beach

Once we set up camp, we hiked down to the beach to catch the sunset. We put our hands in the saltwater just to make sure we were really there! Unlike Lewis and Clark, we will not be retracing our path back to St Louis. Instead, we will be heading south along the Oregon coast, then angling over to Crater Lake as we head back to home to Colorado.