Three Days at Fort Stevens State Park

When I knew that Montana was out of the picture, I decided to head to the coast for some cooler weather and to see how Olive would do with a slower place on no one’s agenda but our own.

Fort Stevens State Park,  near Astoria, is one of my favorite places to camp in Oregon, so I made a reservation there. There’s so much to do inside the park and the nearby town of Astoria. Fort Stevens is the perfect place for a solo woman camper. There’s an ocean beach, a lake, the Columbia River and a historic military fort to explore, along with miles of bike and hiking paths—all inside the state park.

I like to camp in north loops. They’re closer to the lake and have more privacy between sites. It’s always hard to tell booking online, but I ended up with a perfect spot in the J Loop with lots of foliage between sites and room to hook Olive up in back. Our site had water and electric and cost $35 night. There was no sewer hook-ups, but there is a dump station near the park entrance, which I prefer to use anyway.

I left from my friend’s house in Oregon City and it was about a two-hour drive on Hwy 26. We stopped once for a short hike to let Olive (and me) stretch her legs. It was raining off and on when I arrived at the campground, and I decided to take a walk between showers. I headed from my site toward Coffenbury Lake, which is a coastal lake about a mile long inside the park and close to the campground. I was about halfway to the lake when the rain started. By the time I got there, it was really pouring. We didn’t stay long. The normally busy lake was completely deserted and we were totally drenched by the time we got back to Squeaky.

It’s days like these that I am grateful for a van over a tent. We were able to towel off, change clothes and open the laptop. Cell signal is pretty good at the park, which was a nice change from our month at La Pine.

Within a few hours the rain stopped again, so I took a short walk on one of the nearby bike paths. Olive isn’t up for much hiking these days, but it was cool and we were able to go about a mile down a trail where we saw a lone elk cow chomping in the high grass. 

The next morning the sun was out and I decided to add a night to my reservation. I walked over to the ranger station and was happy to discover my site was available for another night. The campground is huge with 485 sites. I saw on Facebook the night before that some friends were also at the park, so I walked over to where they were camping. It was a mile away. We visited for a bit and made plans to go kayaking the next day.

Shipwreck on the Oregon Coast

Back at my campsite, I drove the short distance to the Peter Iredale shipwreck on the ocean beach. The wreck has been there since 1906 when it ran ashore in a storm. It’s a great photo op and there were plenty of people out with cameras. We walked a bit on the beach to the north, came back to the van, made an early dinner and then walked a bit to the south where cars are allowed on the beach. Olive was having a pretty good day and it was nice to let her off the leash from time to time. Normally I keep her on because she’s deaf and can’t hear me call her back.

On my way back, I stopped at my friend’s site for a short campfire visit and met their friends who were the campground hosts.

Kayaking at Fort Stevens State Park

We all met up the next morning to kayak on Coffenbury Lake. In my three years traveling in Squeaky, the one thing I missed having was a way to get out on water. After a lot of research, I decided on an Aquaglide kayak, primarily because of its small packed size and quality construction. I was delighted when I showed up to see my friends also had an Aquaglide, albeit, a tandem. (By the way, use code Squeaky15 at check out and you’ll get 15% off any kayak or SUP from Aquaglide). Being on the lake was wonderful. It was a sunny, but still cool. In her old age, Olive has developed some separation anxiety and for the first 30 mins of the paddle, I could hear her howling in the van in the parking lot. I had to keep telling myself that she was safe and that it was ok for me to have some fun and paddle. Overall, we were on the lake about an hour. Saw a few heron, osprey and an bald eagle fly over. Once Olive quieted down, I relaxed and had a great time.

After the paddle, I was able to dry the kayak pretty quickly in the sun and with a towel. It’s super quick and easy to fold up and put away. I’d decided to go into town of Astoria to do some thrift shopping and have a look around.  I made a sandwich there in the parking lot, ate it at one of the picnic tables right at the lake, changed into some dry clothes and headed toward town.

Fort Stevens Park is in the town of Hammond, which is across the bay from Astoria. While passing through town, I noticed the library was having a book sale. Never one to pass up a book sale, I pulled over and stopped in. One of the things I love about travel in a small RV like Squeaky is the ability to pull over when you see something interesting. I bought a couple of books and while I was checking out at the tiny town library, I saw a flyer for some gay pride events. I asked the librarian about it and they told me they were going to be reading some kids books. I asked if they had a copy of my book Queer.

They looked it up and didn’t have it, so I donated a copy that I had with me. Happy Pride, Hammond!

Our trip into Astoria was quick. I took Olive on a short walk around the historic area. Astoria reminds of a bit of a tiny San Francisco with the hills overlooking the ocean and bay and the Victorian houses. And since it was Pride month, there were even a number of rainbow flags up and about. I made a quick stop in the thrift store. It was warming up, so decided to head back to the park.

Fort Stevens is the site of a military fort dating back to the 1800s. I’m not a big military buff, but I did stop and climb around on the gun batteries and read a bit of the history. The fort was fired upon by a Japanese submarine during World War Two, and even though there was no damage, the incident made Fort Stevens the only installation to be attacked by an enemy since the War of 1812. The battery overlooks a disc golf course which looks like a lot of fun.

Next we drove up to the mouth of the Columbia River. On previous visits, this has been one of my favorite places to hang out because you get to see where the ocean and the river meet, but a jetty construction project has a lot of this area blocked off and will continue until 2024. We had a short walk down to the river, so Olive could get her feet wet and have a drink. She seemed tired and ready to call it a day, so we drove back to the campsite where we made dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Since I knew we’d be heading out in the morning for dry camping for a few days, I filled the water tanks.

I went to bed early and had a lazy morning getting ready to leave. Olive was not feeling great and was super pokey on our morning walk. We stopped in Astoria and I’d hoped to do some exploring by foot, but she really wasn’t up for it. Instead we stopped at the food carts and got some lunch and headed out to our next destination, just an hour down the road. More about the scary night I spent there tomorrow.

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