My guidebook is now in bookstores!
Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail (Mountaineers Books: 2021) is designed as a guide for thru-hikers and section hikers, with more emphasis on camping options, boat shuttles, and other details backpackers and inn-to-inn hikers need than you can find in my 2015 guidebook Day Hiking: Oregon Coast. It's packed with information. But the OCT is still a work in progress, with new trail sections opening up and other sections of trail closing due to winter storms, plus details about boat ferries, camping options and other services changing as well. Please continue to visit this website for updates to the information found in Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail.
OCT Overview and Updates
Introduction to the Oregon Coast Trail
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
Introduction to the Oregon Coast Trail
The Oregon Coast isn't a wilderness. But hiking the Oregon Coast Trail is an adventure. Read about season, direction of travel, and other quirks and key info.
Section 1: Columbia River to Garibaldi
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
Introduction to the Oregon Coast Trail
The start of the OCT (yes, you definitely should hike southbound) has beaches, headlands, everything--but limited legal camping presents challenges.
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
A half-dozen gorgeous headlands, long beaches, camping and lodging options, and limited highway walking if you study the route carefully.
Section 3: Siletz Bay to Florence
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
Section 2: Garibaldi to Siletz Bay at Lincoln City
A great stretch with fabulous views and good lodging and camping, diminished only by a couple of long stretches of highway walking.
Section 4: Florence to Port Orford
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
The most remote stretch of the OCT, ideal for backpacking, with a couple of bay mouth crossings--one easy to wrangle, one more challenging.
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
Section 5: Port Orford to the border
Amazing views in this least-developed stretch of the Oregon Coast, but limited lodging and some camping challenges, and some long highway hiking.
Photo Gallery
About the Author
Journalist and Avid Hiker
Bonnie Henderson has been backpacking on and writing about the Oregon Coast Trail since 2008. She is the author of three guidebooks: Day Hiking: Oregon Coast, Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon (with Zach Urness), and Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail (coming in October 2021), all from Mountaineers Books. She is also the author of two nonfiction books: The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast and Strand: An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris, both from Oregon State University Press. She lives in Eugene, Oregon. Follow her work at bonniehendersonwrites.com.