Oregon Coast Trail

Oregon Coast Trail
The Oregon Coast Trail at Floras Lake, looking north to the BLM's New River Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC)
Length	425 mi (684 km)
Location	Pacific Ocean coast of Oregon, United States
Trailheads	Mouth of the Columbia River/California border
Use	Hiking
Hiking details
Trail difficulty	Easy to moderate

The Oregon Coast Trail (OCT) is a long-distance hiking route along the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States. It follows the coast of Oregon from the mouth of the Columbia River to the California border south of Brookings.

The trail was envisioned in 1959 by Samuel N. Dicken, a University of Oregon geography professor, approved in 1971 by the Oregon Recreation Trails Advisory Council and developed and managed by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department as part of the state park system of Oregon. The walking length of the trail varies depending on choice of passage across or around estuaries and rivers along the route. If a ferry is not arranged or available, an alternate route around the estuary must be taken; if traveling on foot, this means road walking. The length of the trail, using the Google Maps pedometer tool to measure route mileage, is about 425 miles (680 km) if no ferries are used, though the official coastal guide gives a length of 382 miles (615 km). If no ferries are used, about 39 percent of the route is on the beach, 41 percent is on paved road, and 20 percent is on trail and dirt roads.

A chief feature of the trail are the public beaches created in 1967 via the Oregon Beach Bill, which formalized the public nature of the coastal beaches since the first such law was passed in 1913. Many of the locations, particularly on the southern portion, are remote and isolated. The Oregon coast is bordered by a temperate rainforest, much of which is now second or third growth.

The difficulty of the trail ranges from easy to moderate, with elevation changes of up to a few hundred feet.

The northern trailhead is at the base of the south jetty of the Columbia River, approximately 4 miles (6 km) north of the campground of Fort Stevens State Park and about 13 miles (21 km) from the city of Astoria. The trail runs north-south along the entire Oregon Coast, following the shore as closely as practical. For many portions of the route, it is beach walking, mostly on sand. In populated areas it often follows the nearest street to the shore. Many parts of the trail leave the beach and take an inland path, usually where land formations make the shoreline impassable, such as at Cape Kiwanda. Some of the rocky headlands are passable on foot at beach level only at low tide. Other headlands are traversed by state park or forest service trails well above the sea. In many other places, the road is the only feasible route, mostly U.S. Route 101. The southern terminus of the trail is the unmarked Oregon/California border on a stretch of beach about 5 miles (8 km) south of Brookings, and about half a mile south of the Winchuck River.