Hike at Nestucca Bay on northern coast is often overlooked — but worth a stop

One of the prettiest new hikes on the Oregon Coast is a 2.3-mile loop through the meadows and Sitka spruce forests of a peninsula in Nestucca Bay.

A dozen miles north of Lincoln City, the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge is a three-hour drive from Eugene — but it’s a very scenic drive, worth a weekend trip.

Expanded with new trails, the 1,300-acre wildlife refuge is often overlooked by tourists zooming past on Highway 101.

Deer on the refuge have become so tame that they walk up to hikers out of curiosity. Views extend across fields of wildflowers to the ocean at Cape Kiwanda and Haystack Rock. At the peninsula’s tip you can watch cormorants dry their wings on drift logs in tidal flats near Pacific City.

The southern half of the refuge was acquired by the government in the 1960s as part of a successful project to save an endangered species of Canada goose. The geese spent summers in the Aleutian Islands, but the population there had almost been wiped out by the introduction of arctic foxes for the fur trade. The Fish and Wildlife Service cleared foxes from several islands, allowing the birds to recover. Pastureland here on the Oregon Coast was preserved as winter habitat for the geese.

The wooded peninsula that forms the northern half of the preserve had been a Jesuit retreat, but after a series of legal issues the religious center closed.

After the refuge acquired the Jesuit land in 2013, the local fire department burned the center’s dilapidated dormitory and kitchen as a training exercise. That site is now used as a picnic area, visitable on the loop hike.

The hike begins at a parking turnaround in the midst of a coastal meadow reminiscent of the meadows at Cascade Head, a cape that’s closer to Lincoln City. Although the panorama at Nestucca Bay isn’t as spectacular as on that more famous headland, the flowers are. In late spring and early summer the field is spangled with blue lupine, red paintbrush and purple iris.

An important flower that you might overlook is the early blue violet. As at Cascade Head, this rare plant is the only food source for caterpillars of the endangered silverspot butterfly. What you’re more likely to notice are white tents in the meadow, where biologists are experimenting with strategies to help the tiny blue violet and the butterfly caterpillars recover.

It turns out that the violets do best in rugged coastal meadows where wind and grazing deer keep other plants trimmed close to the ground. Refuge staff have discovered that close mowing also works, and have worn out several lawnmower blades in the process. The tiny violets bloom in late April and early May, but you can usually see their round, nickel-sized leaves beside the meadow trail. Just remember to stay on the trail. Because this is a refuge, pets are banned. Dogs have to stay inside cars.

To find the trailhead, drive Highway 101 north of Lincoln City 12 miles (and north of Neskowin 4 miles). Between mileposts 92 and 93 turn west on Christensen Road. Follow this paved one-lane road a mile to its end.

A wheelchair-accessible 0.2-mile path starts behind the trailhead restroom and climbs to a railed viewpoint platform with the area’s best ocean view. For a longer hike, however, start at a kiosk at the far end of the parking lot, where an old road serves as a wide trail.

After just 0.1 mile you’ll reach a signed junction. The old road goes right, but for the recommended loop, veer left on a path that ducks into a rainforest of red alder, salmonberry and candyflower. Some of the spruce trees here are 5 feet in diameter, but most of them have obviously grown over the stumps of the original forest, whose trees were twice as large.

At the half-mile mark, cross the old road to continue on the trail, following pointers for “Two Rivers View.” This will take you down to a railed bayside viewpoint at trail’s end. On the return trip, keep right to find the picnic area and memorial at the site of the Jesuit retreat. A side path here descends 200 feet to the bayshore itself, a small muddy cove where fishing is allowed.

To complete the loop, simply return on the old road from the picnic area back to your car.

When I hiked this final part of the loop I saw a small black bear, the size of a large dog, calmly eating plants in a meadow 100 feet away. The bear squinted up at me briefly, and then went on eating. At the trailhead I asked a park caretaker about the encounter.

He nodded. “She has a cub in the woods.”

“Is that dangerous?” I asked.

He explained that animals on the refuge had lived their entire lives without encountering hunters or dogs, so they go about their own business. The only big change, he said, comes on the first day of hunting season, when elk herds from the surrounding county suddenly show up.

Tourists may not have heard about the charms of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge, but word seems to have spread among the natives.