Though I had already hiked every trail and beach on the Oregon Coast, some multiple times, I didn’t actually do a thru-hike of the OCT myself until 2008. Actually two section hikes; I backpacked the OCT solo from the Columbia River to Yachats in early September 2008 and did the southern half in July 2009.
I learned a lot from those semi-thru-hikes that I couldn't have known from day hiking the same stretches. I put everything I learned into this blog and consolidated it in the 2015 edition of Day Hiking: Oregon Coast (the publishers insisted on keeping that name but let me stuff it with OCT info too).
I love hiking and backpacking and canoeing and kayaking and cycling. I am a journalist primarily focused on the natural world. In addition to my hiking guidebooks, my most recent book is The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast, critically acclaimed but not something I would necessarily recommend you read right before your thru-hike. My previous book, Strand: An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris, was a finalist for the 2009 Oregon Book Awards. I live in Eugene, Oregon, but spend an inordinate amount of time at the coast, hiking and doing communications work for North Coast Land Conservancy, headquartered in Seaside. Read more about (and by) me at www.bonniehendersonwrites.com.
I would love to hear from you, particularly if you hike the OCT and have updates I can share here with other hikers and add to the next edition of my guidebook. Post a comment here, or e-mail me via this page: http://www.bonniehendersonwrites.com/contact.html
