We’re about half an hour south of Cannon Beach, Oregon which is famous for Haystack Rock. Three years ago we passed through on our way up to the Olympic Peninsula for the summer but other than that we have not spent any time in Cannon Beach. The other day we put together a mostly gravel road ride to explore the area.
Starting from the beach parking lot at Tolovana Beach we did a short spin through part of town before turning up into the forest on a logging road. I’ll keep saying it, these gravel roads are awesome in that most or at least a lot of them are closed to cars but open to regular bikes (not e-bikes) and hikers. We didn’t see anyone. There is a maze of gravel roads out here so make sure you have a mapping app at the ready. We used Ride With GPS.
This ride was a delight with quiet roads through deep lush forest at times, across logging cuts and dry hillsides, views of the ocean, and trees trees trees. It was just a bit over 20 miles with 2366′ of climbing so it packs a punch but is a nice shorter option. The last part of our ride had “No Trespassing” signs so we couldn’t get through to Ecola State Park for an additional add-on but we’ll be back to check that out a different day. Instead, we had to do a short mile stint on Highway 101 back down into Cannon Beach.
I mean really, just look at the pictures. I will say, the last one in the gallery is of a viewpoint along the drive to the ride.
