A Week In Manzanita

30 August 2006 by ben.

For the fourth time in the past six years, we rented a house in Manzanita, Oregon, for the week starting 19 August. Manzanita is a small coastal town, population about 600, nestled between Neahkahnie Mountain to the north and Nehalem Bay to the south. It’s main street has a quirky collection of shops and restaurants, a pizza place that used to be great but greatly disappointing this year, and two miles of soft sandy beach. A chain of modestly sized sand dunes separates most of the surf from the homes, except near downtown where the sea can nearly splash main street in a good storm.

We enjoy lazing around the quiet community, our dogs are welcome, and the beach is just a block away. Since the kids are older now, we organized a couple family hikes during the week, both on the Oregon Coastal Trail as it passes through Oswald State Park a few minutes north of Manzanita. The first hike was mostly flat over three miles to Cape Falcon where we picnicked high above a primitive Falcon Cove while perched on a blackberry vine-infested trail clinging to the bluff. Views into the small cove reminded me of something I might see a million years ago — the rocky and narrow cove opening could wreck even the most daring of boaters; and no trail could safely drop the 250′ to the beach. There’s a memorial on the far side of the cove (along the cape) further up the trail than we ventured this time, and I suspect it is from a shipwreck. On our return, we detoured onto Falcon Point where we could look south past Smuggler’s Cove and Neahkahnie Mountain to Manzanita and beyond.

And just as we began our three-mile return trek, a flock of pelicans flew around the cape to fish in Smuggler’s Cove:

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