Today’s hike was a short one – this was the last day of our family vacation – we had intended to do it the day before but it was raining – we decided to do this kind of on our way out of town before we went home. It was a short hike that all the kids could do, but I thought it was a pretty neat old tree – well worth the effort.

While the trail heads down from the Astoria column (where were originally going to start), it also has a trailhead along a road at the upper end of Astoria. We decided to try and go from that trailhead. There were a few spots to park along the road and then a gate over part of the trail (I think they drive vehicles up the trail to maintain it):

We headed up the trail – along the way, I couldn’t help notice the beautiful old forest that was surrounding us:

It was pretty amazing since this was literally right on the edge of town – how this portion of the forest doesn’t appear to have ever been logged.

The trail was very wide, which made it easier for the group to make it up the hill:

There were a couple of short steep sections but thankfully they were short. We encountered a boardwalk (not sure why they did that) with the junction to the trail that headed up to the column. Just past that junction was the tree with a sitting bench nearby. When we got there, there was another family that was taking a picture in the tree. We waited a couple of minutes and then they were done – we then got to see the Cathedral tree:

It is a very old, very large tree with lots of areas to crawl thru underneath it. It must have started on a nurse log which created all the spaces under it I’m guessing. However it evolved, it was a pretty cool tree. I think the kids had fun playing in it too for a few minutes.

The trip back downhill seemed to go a lot faster, although I took a short detour to explore what appears to be a reroute in progress. It wasn’t long before we were all back at the trucks and we headed home. It was a great way to end our vacation!