Humbug Mountain State Park

This park wins the prize for coolest name. It also has the nicest bathrooms and showers we’ve seen at any state park, the tallest mountain in Oregon that rises directly from the sea, and the highest ratio of garbage cans per site EVER. So to sum it up- superior bathrooms, lots of places to stow your trash, and a mountain to climb- that’s what you get at Humbug S.P.

A 1,756 ft. mountain that rises straight out of the ocean

Oh, and how could I forget, you also get a very nice place to camp and a gorgeous beach just a short walk away. Humbug Mountain is one of Oregon’s smaller state parks with just 32 RV sites (with water & electric hookups) and 62 tent sites. It’s also extremely affordable at only $16/night for a hook up site from October through April and $20/night during the summer months. The campground has a pretty open layout with not much in the way of tall trees for privacy between sites. Just these cool looking pruned hedges.

Perfectly pruned hedges give this park an English garden meets Oregon casual look

We chose a site on the inner side of loop A. Our site backed up to a large grassy circle which didn’t give us much privacy, but did allow us to soak up a few precious rays of sun.

Looks like we’re back in the land of green, green grass

Privacy wasn’t much of a concern because the park was practically deserted during our three day stay. At any given time there was never more than 6 or 7 campers including the two camp hosts. Speaking of camp hosts, the ones in our loop had an airstream! Since arriving on the west coast we’ve seen tons of airstreams in the campgrounds where we’ve stayed, but this is our first airstream camp host spotting. These hosts were from CA and gave us some good advice for the next leg of our journey.

Airstream camp hosts

Since the thing to do here is climb the mountain, we did just that. It’s not a terribly long hike, only 5 miles round-trip up a well maintained switch-backed trail through a dense, dripping coastal forest. We got an October treat on the bottom half of the mountain where bright yellow & orange Big Leafed Maples were scattered in amongst the dark green evergreen canopy.

Moss covered branches and bright yellow foliage

Rare fall foliage on the coast

At some points the trail was completely covered with huge, bright leaves.

Rainbow trail

At about the one mile mark the thick forest opened to allow a view of the ocean to the west.

Port Orford in the distance

There was one more spot a little farther up with a similar view, but no view from the top. A cleared grassy area and a bench indicate that once there was a view to be enjoyed, but now all you see are tall trees with just a glimpse of ocean beyond.  It was a nice hike anyway, especially since we haven’t climbed any mountains since our stay in the Olympic National Park, way back in the first half of September. Lots of long beach walks, but not many mountains along the coast for climbing. Speaking of beaches… the one at Humbug Mountain was pretty cool.

A rocky beach

sun & clouds

Tim looking a little less cold than on the last beach

Loving life!

This was a fun campground for us. It was nice to have both the beach and a mountain to enjoy. And did I mention how awesome the showers were? Awesome is not usually a word I associate with campground showers. Scary, dark, slimy or sometimes tolerable- but never awesome. These showers had three things that made them awesome in my book: large & private (each shower was it’s own room), perfect temperature water with good water pressure, and a shelf to put all my shower goodies. You would be surprised how often this last feature is missing- drives me crazy. We both enjoyed the showers more than once during our stay because who knows when we’ll find ones that good again.

Only one stop left in Oregon. Sounds like rain all week, but maybe the sun will come out for a surprise visit as we head on down the road.