Over 50 Outside 2023 Hike #40/52

Second section hike of the OCT (Oregon Coast Trail)
​Aug. 9-16, 2023

My friend and I completed our second section hike along the OCT. We plan to complete this over a three year period. We added 77,23 more miles to the first section we did which totaled 46.59 miles. This section was 7 days and we were unable to secure a hotel stop, due to the hotel rates. The Hostel in Seaside which normally takes in OCT hikers without reservations was full. This was due to the International Volleyball tournament in Seaside which draws 15,000 people. We were hiking through there on one of their tournament days. 
We met at the Old Town train station in downtown Portland to catch the Point bus to the coast. This is a luxury bus with wifi and recharging capabilities for electronic devices, which is handy. There are bus connections that run from Yachats to Astoria so it is easy to use the bus system along this hike. From what I am reading the boats that normally would ferry hikers across the big bays and rivers are no longer operating and many hikers are taking buses to bypass these sections. On the bus we met 3 other OCT hikers and they camped at Ft Stevens the first night too.

We got off the bus in Warrenton on Neptune Avenue and began our OCT hike. Our first destination was Fort Stevens with a hiker biker camp. We walked to the Warrenton Waterfront Trail and followed it until it petered out. Luckily there was a gentleman who pointed us to the road we needed to take to get to the Ft Stevens Park entrance. 

We didn't have any trouble getting a campsite. We found our three hikers we met on the bus plus another person who was cycling from Vancouver Island to Baha. He had a great sense of humor. 
We set up our tents not knowing that we had set up our tents on the tent camping area and not the Hiker Biker camp. There was a squirrel that had eaten a hole through a couple's tent and was snacking on their food inside the tent. Alot of activity as they used duct tape to repair their tent. The squirrel was busy trying to find other inattentive campers with food for the taking. Then the squirrel would sit in the grass, eating small flowerheads, as if saying "Aren't I cute!".
Shortly after that a mother and adult son came around looking for their tent site and we discovered that it was us who had set up our tent in their site. The indignation from the mother was palpable. She told us she made these reservations two weeks ago and finding us with tents set up put her in a bad mood. 
She went and found the ranger who barely was polite as she tried to tell us we were in the wrong site and how this happened everyday. My friend was thiniking if this happens everyday then there is a problem with distinguishing the hiker biker camp. 
We moved our tents, along with the biker who had the best illegal campsite.
We had some fun plotting our revenge to include not warning them about the hungry squirrel. Then we wanted to plant a peanut or a snickers bar under their tent to attract the squirrel. 
We didn't do anything more than not warn them about the squirrel. 
We didn't see the biker again. One of the OCT hikers planned to get to Tillamook Head the following day so we didn't see him again. The couple we saw at Tillamook Head and then they moved on at a faster pace than us. 
That is how it happens on these long hikes. We saw plenty of bike riders doing the coast bike ride. 

Point Adams Research Station