8A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2017
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US
facebook.com/
DailyAstorianSports
Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
ghenley@dailyastorian.com
Attikin
Babb
Lucy
Bodner
Nick
Both
Rylee
DeMander
Olaf
Englund
Alex
Eterno
Jackson
Januik
Jeramy
Poyer
Sydney
Villegas
Alexis
Wallace
Coastal Elite Camp set for tipoff
The Daily Astorian
The ex-students will be the teach-
ers in the upcoming Coastal Elite
Basketball Camp, which takes place
throughout July at the new sporting
complex on the Clatsop Community
College campus.
With several former area athletes
providing the instruction, the annual
camp, in its second year, is commit-
ted to raising the competitive level
of youth basketball on the Oregon
Coast. The camp offers the neces-
sary coaching and tools needed to
raise the skill level and confidence
of each athlete.
Sessions 1 and 2 will be the Girls
Day Camps, for ages 8-17. Cost is
$100 per session.
Session 1 is 5 to 7 p.m. Mon-
day-July 14; Session 2 is 5-7 p.m.
July 15-19.
The Boys Day Camps (Sessions
3 and 4) are also for ages 8-17, and
cost $100 per session.
Session 3 is 5-7 p.m. July 20-24,
and Session 4 is 5-7 p.m. July 25-30
(no camp on the 27th).
The final day of each camp ses-
sion will consist of an All-Star com-
petition similar to the NBA, with
prizes handed out to the top perform-
ers in each division. All camp partic-
ipants will receive a camp T-shirt.
To register online, go to: www.
coastalelitecamp.com.
Camp directors are Nick Both
and Alex Eterno, with Tillamook
High School graduate Jacob Begin
serving as a special guest coach.
A resident of the Oregon Coast
for the past 20 years, Both has been
coaching youth basketball for the
past five years. Under his coach-
ing, the Astoria girls’ tournament
team qualified for state four years in
a row.
He has also coached the Astoria
Middle School girls team for the last
two years, going 11-1 their first year
and undefeated their second.
Eterno was a multiple-sport ath-
lete at Astoria High School, where
he is the girls’ junior varsity basket-
ball coach. He just completed his
second season coaching with the
girls’ 13U tournament team, which
has qualified for state the last two
years.
In addition, other coaches
involved with the camp are some of
the best high school players in the
area over the last five years.
The list includes Seaside’s
Attikin Babb, Lucy Bodner, Jack-
son Januik and Sydney Villegas;
and Astoria’s Rylee DeMander, Olaf
Englund, Jeramy Poyer and Alexis
Wallace.
Trail: A legacy of Oregon’s landmark 1967 Beach Bill
“You get spoiled,” said Hoepfler,
who came from Austria to hike the
PCT and ended up on the OCT.
But Hampsten is beginning to
think the Pacific Crest Trail hikers
are the ones who are spoiled. There
are so many resources built around
that trail: books, online forums, data,
websites, communities. When hik-
ers walk into a town trailing clouds
of dust, clothes crisp with a week’s
worth of sweat, they are a familiar,
even expected, sight.
By comparison, the Oregon Coast
Trail, for all its proximity to civili-
zation, is almost uncharted territory.
People stopped Hochadel on Sunset
Beach, curious, asking, “What are
you doing? Why are you carrying
that pack?”
Continued from Page 1A
gather at the edge of a road off U.S.
Highway 101 to eat a late breakfast
in the shade before continuing on to
Falcon Cove in Oswald West State
Park. Bri Hochadel sits cross-legged
and looks around at the forest on
either side of the road. Peter Carpen-
ter ventures a couple of steps down
the trail and then unfolds his sleep-
ing pad to make a more comfortable
seat on the ground next to Hochadel.
Tanner Annichiarico, the only Ore-
gonian in the group, remains stand-
ing, loosening his heavy pack and
stretching his arms.
The four hikers started on the
Pacific Crest Trail this spring. They
hiked more than 500 miles before
they hit snow. They heard it was even
worse farther ahead. They didn’t
want to split up, but they weren’t
sure they wanted to push through the
mountains. Should they just wait for
the snow to melt?
They hadn’t expected to finish
the PCT anyway. At the leisurely rate
they were going, hikers who started
two weeks after them had already
caught up and passed them by. They
were the only hikers they encoun-
tered who had packed games: Yaht-
zee and Frisbees. They were put off
by PCT hikers obsessed with mile-
age, whose first question was, “How
many miles did you make today?”
Then Annichiarico and Carpenter
stumbled on the Oregon Coast Trail
while researching alternative routes
online. The group canceled a grocery
run and started figuring out how to
get to Astoria. They began their hike
at South Jetty in Fort Stevens State
Park and plan to walk the approxi-
mately 400-mile-long trail all the
way to where it ends near Brookings
at the California border.
The trail has been heaven after
weeks of California’s deserts, they
say. It hugs the Oregon Coast and
there are long stretches of flat beach,
cliff sides thick with trees, green
woods dense with mosses and ferns.
But there are also challenges.
Closing gaps
The Oregon Coast Trail was offi-
cially declared “hikeable” in 1988, a
legacy of the state’s landmark 1967
Beach Bill that granted public access
to all of Oregon’s beaches, writes
Eugene author Bonnie Henderson in
her guidebook to the trail. The trail is
a work in progress.
Unlike the world-famous PCT,
which winds through remote back-
country, the Oregon Coast Trail is
what hikers call a “civilized” trail. In
Clatsop County, sections of the trail
are popular as day hikes at Fort Ste-
vens, Ecola and Oswald West state
parks. In a single day’s trek, a hiker
might start on the beach, cross a
highway, dive deep into quiet woods,
climb in and out of ravines and end
up in a town packed with tourists try-
ing to escape the heat in Portland.
The trail is not set up for back-
packers, or thru-hikers. Legal camp-
sites are few and far between. Dif-
ferent sections of the trail are
maintained at different levels. Gaps
exist where hikers must trek along
highways or down neighborhood
roads, or hitch rides with friendly
‘No solid answers’
Photos by Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
From left, Peter Carpenter, Bri Hochadel and Ryley Delgado, all from the East Coast, stop for a break out-
side of Arch Cape while hiking the Oregon Coast Trail. Like dozens of other backpackers this spring, the
group abandoned the Pacific Crest Trail and started walking the Oregon Coast Trail.
boaters to get across waterways.
There are really only two authori-
tative books on the trail, one by Hen-
derson and another by Portland res-
ident Connie Soper. Both focus on
day hikes, but also offer tips and
information specifically for thru-hik-
ers. Soper has advocated for the trail
to be finished, the gaps closed.
A bill in front of the state Legis-
lature, House Bill 3149, would do
just that. It would require the state’s
Parks and Recreation Department to
work with other state agencies, local
governments and organizations and
stakeholders to develop an action
plan for the Oregon Coast Trail. The
plan would detail what is needed to
fill gaps in the trail system, and take
into account “the concerns of the
public and other interested parties.”
Meanwhile, a number of people
in coastal communities are address-
ing one piece on their own.
Backyard buddies
Jeanne Henderson has never seen
anything like the numbers of hikers
passing by her house now.
Henderson, who is Bonnie Hen-
derson’s sister-in-law, lives in Surf
Pines between Warrenton and Gear-
hart. On this stretch of the Oregon
Coast Trail, hikers are either on the
roads or walking the beach. They are
hard to miss. When Henderson sees
them on the road, she pulls over and
offers them a ride to Seaside. They
always get in her car, and they all
have her sister-in-law’s book.
They tell her the same story: They
started on the PCT, hit snow, recon-
sidered their options, heard about the
Oregon Coast Trail, decided to try it.
Many of them plan to go back to the
PCT when they’re done in Oregon.
Henderson’s friend Pat Woll-
ner has often hosted cyclists passing
through the area. During the sum-
mer, her house is full most week-
ends. Henderson didn’t quite under-
They tell her they’ve reached
Newport.
In recent weeks, she has enlisted
friends up and down the coast, urg-
ing them to let hikers she meets
camp in their backyards. One friend
was wary at first, but quickly fell in
the love with the group Henderson
sent her way. When they left, she
told Henderson, “I miss my back-
yard buddies. Send me some more.”
Signs and beer
Ryley Delgado and the group
of people he’s hiking with walk
along U.S. Highway 101 to reach
the next section of the Oregon
Coast Trail.
‘There are
people who
are journeying
forth for the
first time and
just assuming
something will
be there …
and something
isn’t there.’
Ben Cox
Nehalem Bay State Park manager
stood the appeal before. Now, having
met so many thru-hikers, Henderson
said, “It’s killing me not to pick them
all up.”
She worries about a young Nor-
wegian woman hiking alone — “I’ll
be fine,” the woman assured her. She
exchanges texts with Annichiarico,
Carpenter, Delgado and Hochadel.
Nicole Hampsten, a teacher from
California and an experienced back-
packer, didn’t start on the Pacific
Crest Trail this spring, but is consid-
ering jumping on it once she finishes
the Oregon Coast Trail. She said the
OCT is very different from other
long-distance hikes and not linear.
While planning how far she’ll try to
hike each day, Hampsten longs for
maps with mileage marked on them
— something most available maps
lack — and clear signage.
Hiker Andy Gosiak said signage
was spotty the entire trail.
“There were about five signs the
whole trail,” Gosiak joked.
“There were probably 10,” one
of his hiking companions Andreas
Hoepfler countered. Catching the
smile still on Gosiak’s face, he
added, “No. I’m serious right now.”
Still, there are perks.
“We’ve got beer!” said Hochadel,
swinging her pack to show where the
beers were tucked into its side pock-
ets as the group hiked out of Arch
Cape.
“In glass bottles!” Carpenter
added.
On the Oregon trail, thru-hikers
don’t need to carry much food or
water. They can easily resupply at
one of the nearby towns. They can
indulge themselves, packing things
they normally wouldn’t carry on a
longer slog like the Pacific Crest
Trail.
This spring, several thru-hikers
contacted the Parks and Recreation
Department for guidance. Nehalem
Bay State Park Manager Ben Cox
and his staff could only tell them:
Be aware of the tides, here are the
campgrounds available, check in
with state parks along the way for
information.
Before the Parks Department and
individual parks can begin to accom-
modate thru-hikers, they must first
address issues on the trail system
itself. There are reroutes planned for
some sections. There are infrastruc-
ture needs. This year, Cox applied
for a Recreational Trail Program
grant to work on the Oswald West
section of the Oregon Coast Trail.
Though some thru-hikers might
be camping on park land illegally,
they are not the people that worry
Cox or his rangers. The average fam-
ily picnicking at Indian Beach leaves
far more litter.
The hikers also know what
they’re doing, Cox said. They know
how to pitch and break camp and
navigate a trail. They are respectful.
The problem is that many of these
hikers are encountering the Oregon
Coast Trail for the first time.
“There are people who are jour-
neying forth for the first time and
just assuming something will be
there,” he said, “ … and something
isn’t there.”
As the Parks Department looks
at thru-hikers’ needs, it has to tread
carefully. The answer is not as sim-
ple as requiring a permit, as the PCT
does, or creating hiker campsites.
Oswald West State Park, for
example, is made up of numerous
parcels of land. Some parcels come
with deed restrictions attached that
allow or forbid certain activities and
limit the department’s options.
The dilemma of where they are
going to sleep each night weighs on
Annichiarico and the others.
“The worst thing we could do is
give rangers a reason to kick every-
one out,” he said.
They talk with locals when they
enter a town to get an idea of what’s
allowed in that area. They’ve been
offered backyards, and even beds.
But sometimes, they’ve had to take
their chances and sleep near the trail
in areas where it is probably illegal.
“We’re looking at this,” Cox said.
“We really are. We’re looking at
things. We have no solid answers.”