Hiking in Cape Perpetua

Newport to Cape Perpetua, OR | Seal Rock | Hiking in Cape Perpetua | November 2025

After two great days around Newport, it was time to move further South to find more beautiful places. When I drove down the coast with Charlotte in 2017, I did it all in a day and a half, but this time we would be going much slower. We had finally made it to the Pacific and had over two months, there was no need to rush! Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to convince Curtis that we should slow down and enjoy this part, because the Oregon coast is filled with so much variety in the things we could do.

We drove South from Newport, and shortly after we made our first stop at Seal Rock. I didn’t necessarily feel the need to stop at every place I went 8 years ago, but there were some I remembered more than others and just wanted to make sure Curtis saw the highlights. We stopped at the wayside park, walked the short loop trail, and took in all the scenic viewpoints, then continued on our way.

Our main focus for today was Cape Perpetua. Looking at the map, it looked like this area had lots of short trails, and the potential for camping somewhere back in the hills. When we arrived, we first parked at the visitor center, got stamps, and looked at maps. We decided to begin our time here by hiking the trail right behind the center to the Spruce Tree.

I knew I was going to love this trail right away, when the first trees we saw weren’t ‘the tree’ that we had come to see, but they were already huge and very impressive. In fact, everything on this trail seemed larger, even down to the clovers and ferns along the path. The trail was easy to follow, though a little muddy, narrow, and steep at times, but we made it back to ‘the spruce’ (a very large Sitka) and marveled at its size. I’d say I enjoyed the entire trail through the rainforest so much that this tree was just the icing on the cake.

Next, we drove over to the wayside area for Devil’s Churn, and had a little picnic lunch at a table there, listening to the waves crash below us. A Steller’s jay stood on the wall near us to watch us eat, pretending like it didn’t want our food and waiting patiently for us to leave so it could inspect the table thoroughly to see if we left it any scraps. Sorry bird, no food for you!

Once everything was eaten and put away, we went for a short walk to see the Devil’s Churn, an interesting water feature where the waves roll back into a small canyon like area and then turn around and come crashing back. After watching it a while, we continued on the trail going down to a cove. We had heard from the visitor center that part of this trail connecting it with Thor’s Well was closed, but we didn’t see any such closure. We still opted to leave that trail for the next day, and returned to where we were parked.

For our final hike together, we drove up to the Cape overlook trail, and parked in the lower lot so that the van wouldn’t have to do all the work to get there. We made a long loop through the woods, and took our time at the little overlook shelter, admiring the view of the ocean and surrounding coastline from above. You can also start this trail from the visitor center, though that would be a lot more elevation gain. We knew we were going to continue further back on the forest road, so we opted to drive up here before continuing on our way back to find a campsite.

The road back into the hills was narrow, but partially paved and in pretty good condition. We took it slow and checked out different potential camp spots on the way. We ended up finding one we felt comfortable with, though the area was muddy, we found a way to avoid that.

Curtis: After we had settled in the van, I took a look at the nearby peaks and noticed that the road we had driven in on went all the way up to a prominent point: Cummins Peak. I estimated the distances from where we had parked and figured it would be 5-6 miles round trip. With it being all road walk, I did the math for sundown and figured ‘Yeah, I still got time’ and set off.

Too bad I’m terrible at estimating distances though, and it turned out to be just over 8 miles round trip. But I still made it back to the van just as dusk was fading to night. The road had quite a bit of activity for how removed we were. I passed by a hunters camp, as well as some hunters in trucks who asked if I had seen any elk. At one point, while keeping an eye out for any deposit-able bottles or cans, I noticed a Stanley thermos by the side of the road. Jack-pot. There was some leftover hot beverage and tortillas inside which I disposed of, and then I set the thermos in a place where I could pick it up on the way back. And then I noticed the bundled branches of holly tied up in string. As I continued deeper into the woods, I noticed more of these bundles, and eventually heard and eventually saw a pair carrying out the holly – probably for some holiday decor. When I came back down the road the thermos was gone. Whoops, sorry for eating your tortillas.

The peak itself had a small comms tower and absolutely zero view. The entire road walk had zero view as it was, but was instead deep within some fairly old second growth forest. As I walked back and dusk set in, it created an eerie effect, the type where you believe there’s something in the trees, but you just can’t quite see it. Naturally, I saw nothing: no bears, no elk, no Sasquatch. I returned to the van, where we enjoyed dinner and a quiet night in the forest.