Cape Meares is located East of Portland on Oregon Coast near Tillamook. From Portland, it takes approximately 2 hours of drive time to get there. Cape Meares is a National Wildlife Refuge area with few easy hiking trails. At the top of Cape Meares, there is also a light house located right above the cliff near the coast line. Most of Cape Meares trails are quite easy and short. Thus the parking area is not that big because people tend to just come and go. For day use, there are few picnic tables around for people to enjoy the nature.
We drove to Cape Meares since we were visiting Tillamook Creamery that day. When we got to Cape Meares, there was not too many people. The parking lot at the top was essentially empty. From the parking lot, there was a trail the directly leads people to the light house. The trail was well paved and thus it was suitable for people with all ages.
There were few look out points along the trail with binoculars. People could use the binoculars to spot sea gulls and seals along the rocks on the coast. If you were lucky, you could also spot whales migrating along the coast.
The light house at the end of the trail was not tall. It had red coloured glass around its light. It would be a pretty sight if we came here at night to see it light up. Unfortunately, we could not enter the light house to look at it more closely either. At the bottom of the lighthouse, it seemed like there was a small gift shop there. But due to the pandemic, the gift shop is temporarily closed to avoid having crowd.
Overall, it was a fun trip to head out for a nice nature walk during the pandemic. We would definitely be interested to come back again to check out the inside of the lighthouse when it reopens in the future.