Continue your descent in a salmonberry/false lily-of-the-valley understory to reach the north side of the headland. Switchback three more times, and head down through dense, dark spruce forest. Keep rising to the high point of the trail before dropping to switchback four times, and then take a steep flight of steps. Reach a ridge crest, and continue up to a bench and viewpoint over Hobbit Beach through the trees. The trail traverses up and takes a couple flights of steps to switchback six times under older multi-limbed spruces cradling beds of leathery polypody ferns. Traverse up and switchback to drop again into another bowl. Go right here, and drop above a leafy bowl of salal and Sitka spruce. Switchback three more times, and then make an undulating traverse to the junction with the Heceta Head Trail: this is just a few yards from Highway 101 and the Hobbit Beach Trailhead - you'll be returning here to complete the loop. Switchback up twice into a dense thicket of rhododendron, salal, and evergreen huckleberry. Head up through a tunnel of salal and into moss-carpeted spruce woods. This is where the Hobbit Trail, part of the Oregon Coast Trail, leads up from the beach. Cross a small creek, and see emergency locator number 93 at the bluffs.

You’ll soon cross Blowout Creek and pass some low rocks on the shoreline, often a resting place for the ubiquitous gulls. Colorful sandstone cliffs form a backdrop to the beach. Reach wide sandy Hobbit Beach, and head south, getting views of Heceta Head and, looking back, to Cape Perpetua. Take the paved trail past the restrooms through a tunnel of stunted Sitka spruce and shore pine. The inland return loop, using the Valley and China Creek Trails, takes you back to your car through deep mossy woods. The route follows wide Hobbit Beach and picks up trails that wind through the spruce forest to the headland’s ridge crest before dropping to the lighthouse area. While it’s a short walk up to the lighthouse from the parking area at Devils Elbow Beach (See the Heceta Head Hike), you can enjoy more of this part of the coast by beginning your hike at Carl G. Its completion in 1894 filled the gap between the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and the Umpqua River Lighthouse south of Reedsport. The Heceta Head Lighthouse shines the brightest beam on the Oregon Coast, and it was also the last lighthouse built in the system.

Hecta head milky way