Hiking Archives - Seaside Oregon

Cathedral Tree to Astoria Column is a 2 mile out and back trail located near Astoria.

The forested ridge of Coxcomb Hill which rises above the city of Astoria holds a couple of extraordinary sights that can be visited using a small network of trails. One is a 300+ year-old Sitka spruce that sprouted from a nurse log and has now reached about 8 1/2 feet in diameter and 200 feet in height. The final destination of this hike is the top of the Astoria Column, only 125 feet high but whose observation deck can be reached via a spiral staircase. From the deck, take in the views south towards Saddle Mountain and west towards the mouth of the Columbia River.

From the small Irving Avenue Trailhead, take the Richard Fencsak Cathedral Tree Trail behind a white gate (Fencsak was a trail builder and owner of a local bike shop). Coltsfoot and skunk-cabbage bloom along here in early spring. The trail, initially a wide gravel path, rises under Sitka spruce, western hemlock, salmonberry, salal, and red elderberry. The area is more open now since a big December 2007 windstorm. Little interpretive signs explain some plants along the trail. Keep ascending into woods that are less devastated and reach a wooden staircase that leads to a boardwalk. At a junction, go left about 40 yards to the Cathedral Tree, a large Sitka spruce with a buttress-like base that remains standing although the devastation around it leaves it rather isolated.

You can return the way you came or make a loop using Irving Avenue. To accomplish the latter, head down to the saddle and, just before reaching it, go left on the trail that leads to Irving Avenue. Pass under a mossy elderberry bower and enter hemlock woods. At a junction, go right and wind down steeply. At another junction, go left over a footbridge in a soggy bog. The trail braids and then loops around to the right to reach a gravel road (actually 22nd Street). Drop down past homes to Irving Avenue and go right to 28th Street.

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