Will’s favorite place to go is the beach. However our favorite past-time is backpacking. I struggle to find good places that combine both. So instead of having another epic fail we decided to stay at Bill and Karen Hall’s beach house with them and do a little bit of scouting. The first place on our list: Ecola State Park.

Ecola State Park aka Tillamook Head

I’ve heard about this hike from a few people, as well as, seeing it in the hiking book. I’ve been nervous about going, since I heard its a busy place and there are mice. So I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go.

I’m glad in the end we made this a hike. It’s a bit of an uphill jaunt all the way there coming from the south. I think if we did the longer hike coming from the North it would be way better, as well, if you wanted to go early in the season like March then this might be a great place too, but going in May it was super busy and all the huts were full.

Hug Point / Heart Point

Just South on Highway 101 is a small place called Hug Point. Very beautiful busy beach, that I heard you could camp at. Well, it’s REALLY busy and camping there would be awesome if you were by yourself. There is a stream, a waterfall, the beach, easy rocks to climb, star fish, green sea thingies in the tide pools, and on it goes. Alas, there is only one, very small spot to camp and that spot was full when we got there with smoking day beach combers. It was a really fun looking place and definitely a beach I might come back to with the kids to play, but for backpacking this was a no go.