Past Activity

Humbug Mountain car camp

  • Start date: 09/11/2024

  • Start time: 8:00 AM

  • End date: 09/13/2024

  • End time: 5:00 PM

Description:

This trip to the southern Oregon coast will be a 3 day, 2 night car camp. Or, if you choose, there are several motels 6 miles away in Port Orford. As a note of interest it appears that this Obsidian trip has not been repeated since the mid 1970's. I have reserved 5 camp sites (# 59, 60, 62, 63, and 64) at Humbug State park which is 6 miles south of Port Orford on the east side of highway 101. There are showers and flush toilets in the campground. Fees are $50 per camp site for 2 nights plus $37 for mileage for those car pooling. Please make checks payable to John Miller for the camping fees. RV sites are also available if you would like to independently book a site. Please bring your food and or money for eating out. (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks) focus on cooking over your camp stove or sharing equipment.
CLOTHING: Dress for the weather. It can be cool and windy or full sun.
EQUIPMENT: Bring your tent, camp stove, sleeping bag, etc. We have 5 camp sites we can share. There is potable water available at the camp.
SCHEDULE: Day 1, Wednesday- Drive ( allow about 3 hours each way ) to Humbug State Park. Plan on arriving around 1:00pm. Note that check-in is 4:00pm and check out is 1:00pm. After we meet at the campground we can drive 6 miles up to Port Orford Heads Trail and stretch our legs with a scenic 1.2 mile hike of the coastal headlands; returning to camp to set up our respective sites, have dinner and hopefully a camp fire. On day 2, Thursday, have breakfast then head out on foot just south of the camp ground to the Humbug Mountain trail head for the main event. This is a 5.1 mile loop trail through some old growth Doug Fir. The summit provides beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and south along the coast. This hike should take 4-5 hours as we will be traveling at a slow to moderate pace. Please bring your state park and federal park passes. Once back to camp the rest of the day is your to enjoy- site seeing, a nap, or socializing with a camp fire after dinner. On day 3, Friday, we will have breakfast, pack up camp and work north visiting Cape Blanco State Park and Light house then further north visiting the Coquille light house, lunch on your own and home.

  • Event Leader: John Miller

  • Event Leader Phone: 541-255-6254

  • Event Leader Email: D90john@yahoo.com

  • Assistant Leader:

  • Event category: Trips

  • Area Type: Coastal

  • Departure Location:

  • Rating: Mixed

  • Roundtrip total drive miles: 336

  • Season: 2024

  • Permits Required:

  • Event Status: Passed

  • Supplies and Equipment Required:

  • participant prerequisites:

  • Conditions:

  • Total Distance: 5.5

  • Member Fees:

  • Elevation Gain: 1710

  • Non-Member Fees: 10

  • Committee: Trips

  • Junior member fees:

Trip Report

This 3 day, 2 night trip started off with very heavy rain on Wednesday, our travel day to the Humbug Mtn State Park camp ground. Rain lessened up by mid afternoon and the evening turned out dry with the 3 of us enjoying dinner around the camp fire. For the record- Annie Chan attended even though the sign up sheet does not reflect it due to web site functionality issues. The 3 Obsidians were the last to bed and the first to rise each day. This might have had something to do with the very noisy truck traffic on nearby highway 101. We were up at 06:30 Thursday morning and were off heading up the Humbug Mountain trail by 8. The hike up was via the west part of the loop and the steepest part. We enjoyed lunch on the summit with great views to the south and met a variety of folks who showed up while we had an early lunch. Then down the east loop through a bit of blow downs and back to camp by early afternoon. Dinner followed with an enjoyable camp fire till bed time. <br />
Up early again on Friday we had a quick breakfast and camp teardown then headed out on an exploratory hike to the north of the campground which used to be the \"old highway\". This 3 mile out and back provided excellent views of the sea stacks and would be a great whale watching location as it\'s not heavily used. Back to camp and checking out by noon we headed north to Cape Blanco Lighthouse. This is the oldest continuously operating light house in Oregon as well as the furthest west on the continental US. It also is know for being the first light house in the US to have a woman operator. After the windy tour of the light house we visited The Hughes House. We were lucky enough to get a guided tour of the interior by State Park volunteers and it was very impressive....state of the art for 1898!! It was built in the late 1800\'s and functioned as a dairy farm with 2000 acres and several hundred head of dairy cows which were milked by hand daily. As the day was moving right along we stopped in Bandon for a late lunch/ early dinner and the adventure ended here and we all headed home.

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