#nehalem

[agelessphotography]

Pedestrian Access to the Ocean, Nehalem Spit, Tillamook County, Oregon, Robert Adams, 1977-78

[dougrobyngoold]

Spruce Run Creek Trail - Tillamook State Forest, OR

Today we ventured up an established, marked trail in Tillamook State Forest for a hike that logged in just under 6 miles roundtrip.  The trailhead is located on Lower Nehalem Road, right next to the Spruce Run Campground.  We thought this would be a nice, easy, short hike....well, the trail was pretty overgrown with vegetation so we ended up having our work cut out for us.  Lots of berries, which meant lots of barbed vegetation to hack our way through:

Salmonberries and marionberries - both edible!

Lots of ferns and low-hanging bushes along the way.

This was a section of the trail that had been logged, so there were fewer trees and we had a chance to check out the area around the trail. The trail was still very overgrown, even in these areas.

Plenty of foxglove blooming.

Just before we reached the 2-mile mark we started noticing elk droppings on the trail - LOTS of fresh elk droppings!  As we were commenting on this, we heard a branch snap off to our right and when we looked up we saw about 4 elk cows on the next ridge over.  Next thing we know, the entire ridge erupts with elk, cows and calves moving down the ridge line to the creek down below.  We counted close to 30 by the time they had moved out of sight - very cool.

We continued on up the trail, reaching the small pond at the end of the trail not too long after that.  We stopped next to this little stream and saw a few tadpoles swimming around, a little hard to see in the photo, but there is definitely one there (right in the middle of the picture):

We sat down on one of two benches along the trail near the pond and had a little snack and took the required selfie:

The return hike was uneventful, no further elk sightings and no people sightings on the entire hike.  Not a heavily trafficked hiking trail, even though it is right next to the campground.

I took this photo when we were sitting on the bench at the pond.

The foxgloves were taller than us on sections of the trail.

GPS track of our hike on Spruce Run Creek Trail.

[nehalemgraves]

REPOST. DO NOT REBLOG. RULES: share four songs / pieces of music that represent your muse.

Character: Fitz C. Nehalem

You Don’t Miss Twice - Murder By Death

The Whistler - The White Buffalo

Wendigo - Penny and Sparrow

Into the Woods - Fay Wildhagen

Tagged by: @noodleryuu

Tagging: @sadomasticator , @symptomatic-society , @stoatasaurusrex , @deep-sea-marionette , @cuddlingdragons , and @ everyone else. Do it, it’s p fun trying to choose only 4 songs out of a 100 song playlist lol

(( he actually has a whole murder folk / southern & PNW goth playlist ))

(( edited to add links to everything because why not ))

[somethingphotography]

Nehalem.

NEW PHOTO.

Part of the ‘Vernonia’ Run.

[portalithics]

Small, bright agates and chalcedony from the Nehalem River, Clatsop State Forest, Tillamook County, Oregon. February 20th, 2017

[the-lab-rat-falls-into-the-void]

Just outside of Nehalem, Oregon (July 27th 2018).

[pukeboy271]

At the entrance of the Nehalem divide railroad tunnel somewhere between Vernonia and Scapoose.

[kierstenamelia]

Wet woods.