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“Did you see that a Harry Potter cafe opened in Lincoln City?”
Bryan stuck his head into the room, the pivotal news article glowing on his phone screen.
I stared at it. We were already headed to the Oregon coast that weekend for a hiking trip.
It was on the way to Lincoln City from Portland, now decked out in our full Hogwarts wizard robes, that we started to see the billboards. The words “Finders Keepers” were stamped across images of colorful blown-glass floats.
“Let’s stay in Lincoln City a little longer,” I said, adjusting my Hufflepuff scarf and reading about the Lincoln City glass floats on my phone. “The city hides glass floats along the beach for people to find. If you find one, you can keep it.”
We didn’t find a glass float that first time in Lincoln City, but with hot butterbeers from the Harry Potter cafe in hand, we enjoyed a sunset hike along the beach while looking for them. We’ve since been back several times to explore more of this beautiful part of the Oregon coast. In today’s post, I’ll share the highlights of what we discovered: the top 4 Lincoln City hikes.
#1. Seven Miles of Beach – Lincoln City Glass Float Treasure Hunt
While there’s no trail for this Lincoln City hike, it’s a very long walk on the beach that easily earns its place among the top Lincoln City hikes.
Lincoln City has seven miles of beach open to the public, and the city’s famous glass floats can be found anywhere along it. It’s a particularly great option with kids…kind of like a glorified, walking Easter egg hunt.
When we first started looking for glass floats, I thought they’d be hidden inside hollow driftwood, buried under deep grass, or otherwise mostly obscured from view. Our first Lincoln City “hikes” proceeded very nonlinearly. We zigzagged back and forth along the beach, checking behind every log.
It may seem incompatible with a thorough treasure hunt, but you can easily get a workout while looking for glass floats. It turns out the city’s “float fairies” don’t do much actual hiding. When we finally found a float one day, it was sitting right in the open sand, against a cement wall. The key to finding a float is paying attention to your surroundings—I almost walked right past it, lost in thought. Luckily Bryan was still focused!
Walking several miles along a beach might sound like a boring hike, but there’s nothing monotonous about the Lincoln City beaches. There are beaches piled thick with driftwood, wide sandy beaches, beaches with volcanic tide pools, and beaches rimmed with dramatic red sandstone cliffs.
If 14 miles roundtrip is too long to hike in a day (for me it certainly is!), you can easily break it into smaller chunks, starting at different beach access points on different days. If you’re hiking with kids, the Siletz Bay beach access is likely to be a hit. There’s so much driftwood there that it looks like an entire forest washed up on the beach. If they’re into making driftwood forts, you may not get much hiking done, though…
For sunsets, I’d recommend starting at the NW 15th St beach access, and for tide pools, the intriguingly named Roads End is best.
For a greater chance of finding a glass float, time your hike for one of Lincoln City’s “special drop” weeks, when they hide more floats on the beach than usual. The full schedule is here.
Check out our post on how to find a glass float on the beach in Lincoln City for more tips for your search!
#2. God’s Thumb
With a name like “God’s Thumb,” this Lincoln City hike was easily next on our list once we’d found our glass float. God’s Thumb is a windswept, grassy headland that juts out to sea. Standing at the top and looking out over the vast ocean below feels like being perched on the edge of the world.
God’s Thumb isn’t just a headland hike. The trail travels through a rainforest of puffy moss and huge primordial ferns before opening onto the ocean.
Lincoln City hikes are generally a “go” year-round, but prepare for the potential for rain, mud, wind, and hail in the winter. Mud actually isn’t so much in the “potential” category. Definitely expect mud.
That said, we’ve mostly done our Lincoln City hikes in the winter. With the exception of Cascade Head, all the photos in this post are from the winter months. The coast is one of the best winter destinations in Oregon. It just doesn’t get very cold.
The day we last hiked God’s Thumb, the weather seesawed rapidly between sun, rain, and hail. We saw it all. The mud was real. I’d recommend taking trekking poles for the last section, where the trail follows a narrow ridge up the spine of God’s Thumb itself. The path there is slick and near a dropoff. We didn’t have trekking poles, so we just went slowly and hoped. But as a manager of mine once said, hope is not a plan. Next time I’ll take the gear.
For more on this quintessential Lincoln City hike, check out our God’s Thumb blog post.
#3. Cascade Head
Like God’s Thumb, the Cascade Head hike takes you to high meadows on a headland overlooking the ocean. It passes through a forest of massive old-growth spruce trees first, climbing rapidly before opening onto the meadows. For nature buffs, keep an eye out for wildflowers and butterflies. Cascade Head is owned by the Nature Conservancy, and there are plants and insects here that are found in few other places in the world.
Cascade Head is set back further from the ocean, but it’s a much higher vantage than God’s Thumb. From the Cascade Head meadows, God’s Thumb looks like a miniature green hill jutting out to sea far below. All the contours of the coast spread out below the headland, like the view from an airplane window. If I were writing a novel about an epic journey, it would start here, on this idyllic trail across the wildflower meadows on the edge of the sea.
To learn more about choosing the right trailhead and other Cascade Head details, check out our Cascade Head blog post.
#4. Drift Creek Falls
Since this is Oregon, a hiking list would hardly be complete without a good waterfall. There aren’t technically any Lincoln City hikes with a waterfall focus, but Drift Creek Falls is an easy day trip (40 minutes’ drive). With the innumerable waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge and waterfall meccas like Silver Falls State Park, it may seem like the waterfall scene is covered already. But Drift Creek Falls is different.
A high (and long!) suspension footbridge spans the cliffs above Drift Creek Falls, giving hikers a unique closeup view of the waterfall. Past the suspension bridge, the trail curves down to the base of the falls for a classic full-on waterfall view.
Like the other Lincoln City hikes, Drift Creek Falls is a solid option most of the year. We last went in January!
For more on this great waterfall hike near Lincoln City, check out our Drift Creek Falls blog post.
Are there other Lincoln City hikes in your own Top 4 list? Let me know in the comments!
Other Adventures in the Pacific Northwest
For more travel ideas in the Pacific Northwest, check out our PNW Trip Planner. You can find adventures near you and filter by season and difficulty level. There are weird and wonderful things to explore any time of year. The trip planner links to blog posts to help you plan your next adventure.
Happy exploring!
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