Siltcoos Lake Trail

In her wonderful book entitled 120 Hikes on the Oregon Coast, Bonnie Henderson describes this hike this way.  "On a warm summer's day, there's nothing like hiking a couple of miles through deep coastal forest, then plunging into freshwater Siltcoos Lake, the largest lake on the Oregon coast."  When Mary and I - and her cousin Delia, visiting from England - walked this trail in mid-October, we didn't exactly plunge into Siltcoos Lake, but Zoe the wonder dog did test the lake for swimming points!

The trail is about five miles long if you go all the way to the lake, a bit less if you just carry on around the loop and go back to Highway #101.  The trailhead is on the east side of the highway, across from Siltcoos Beach Road, about seven miles south of Florence.  Begin hiking up a steady incline along an old logging road leading through dense shrubbery.  After one-quarter mile or so the trail levels off a bit, and at the one-mile point the trail splits into two trails.  We took the left fork, which drops slowly through second-growth forest logged long ago.  In the 1930s, loggers stood on small platforms called springboards to cut trees above the swell at the base, so look for the springboard notches in stumps left by those old-time tree cutters.

At just over two miles into the hike a spur trail leads left to a group of five lakeside campsites.  These campsites are often occupied by boaters arriving by water, although they were empty when we were there.  There are outhouses at each location, but the ones we saw were in very bad shape!

After enjoying the solitude of the lake, continue around the campsites and return to the trail which, after another three-quarts of a mile, re-joins the original trail you started on.

This trail is between 4 and 5 miles in length, depending on which guide you read!  With its many moderately steep hills, it is rated as More Difficult.

These photos were taken with an Olympus C4040Z digital camera from vantage points along both trails.  The hike starts with the thumbnail in the upper left hand corner and continues as you read a book (left to right, line to line).  Enjoy!