My original plan for this supported attempt when Tyler Weber still had the record was to follow the route and take ferry’s if available, tide alternates if needed and just try to stick to 60 miles day and try to go under 7 days. Then along came Nick Fowler. About 6 weeks before my planned attempt he threw down in 6 days 10 hours. I pretty much decided to not do it and move on to something else but a few people talked me into trying anyways. Looking at beating such a stout time I began taking a much deeper look at everything and planning a schedule to get through the route in less than six full days. The strategy was to take the most direct route available ferrying Nehalem, Tillamook, Coos, Umqua and sand lake and Sixes (and any other smaller streams if needed. But would absolutely stick to all beaches and main route if tides allowed. I borrowed a packraft so I could hike it in and do any of the smaller crossings myself and could use it for the bigger bays if needed. The idea here was to really lean into the supported style and try to do the most direct, fastest route possible. This plan went to crap quickly 🤣
Day 1
Started later in the morning since I’d be waiting on the tide in Tillamook on day 2. Figured I’d do a longer day, get done late and sleep until the tide was right to cross tilamook. Turns out I totally underestimated the first day. Got super hot and I was having a rough go trying to make the ferry at Nehalem. By the time I got to manzanita it would be dark and a bad tide to paddle across the channel so I bailed and ran the highway around Nehalem bay. Called it a little early with plans to still make it down the beach to Tillamook to cross at the tide switch.
Day 2
Left rockaway beach headed to Tillamook planning to paddle across the pinch point in the bay right after low tide. On the way into town I called garibaldi Marina in a last ditch to see if they’d ferry me. Owner said “if you can be here at 8 I’ll take ya” 6 miles and an hour later I was in a boat headed across the bay. Paddling this crossing in a little raft had me super nervous so I was glad to get instead get dropped off safely on the other side. It was a minus 2’ tide and at the time I didn’t realize I’d got dropped off on an island 🤣. Had a waist deep crossing through bay mud while the tide was still sucking out to get to the actual south spit. But back on dry land and so happy to have that behind me. Next crossing was sand lake and I’d be done thinking about tides for a bit. Got to sand lake at high tide and paddled without incident. Followed the official route over to Whalen island and avoided the long road alternate around sand lake. Rest of the day was chill making it to Neskowin right at dark and the rainforest TH a bit later. Original plan was Lincoln city that night but was pretty tired and ready to get some sleep and hit cascade head fresh in the morning. A little over 3 hours behind at this point but still right in the mix for 6 days.
Day 3
Crossed cascade head and made long road section into Lincoln city. Rest of day was just grinding out miles through depot bay, Newport and Waldoort at right at dark. Original plan was to make it south of cape perpetua but at this point was just trying to get to yachats. Super foggy dark beach south of waldport things got fun. It was so foggy that I couldn’t wear a headlamp. My waist lamp only lit up a small area in front of me and staying oriented was super difficult. It was low tide and a flat beach and so it was just wide open. Not being able to see the ocean was freaking me out so I was just meandering down the beach following millions of footprints in every direction. At one point I came across a fat bike track. It wasn’t going straight but it was definitely headed south. It was the easiest thing to orient off of so I just followed its wild ass zig zaggy track all the way down the beach. Finally the fat bike track left the beach and the lack of it launched a wicked hallucination sequence where the beach became a Christmas tree plantation that was very difficult to navigate. Came up just short of yachats proper and got some sleep.
Day 4
Felt pretty terrible that morning but knew I’d be getting through Florence and would be a big turning point. Amanda’s trail and Cape perpetua were amazing. Me and the dog got through it quick enough and then I started the long road sections towards Florence. Made it through the tunnel just fine then almost died right past the sea lion caves. Huge motor home cut an inside corner and I just cowered between it and the guardrail and said goodbye to this world. Didn’t die, made it to the other side of haceta head and was so glad to get off the highway. Plan for the day which was slipping away was to make it to horse fall beach for an early calm crossing of coos bay first thing in the morning. Realized there was no way I was crossing the umpqua on a big tide and super windy day so made the treck up sparrow park road to run around reedsport. Slept in reedsport. The last part of this day I started running really well and was surprised at how my body was starting to feel better rather than worse
Day 5
Woke up after some really good rest feeling great. Was time to get to coos bay as fast a possible. This was the day that could make or break it all. Had a tide window to cross ten mile creek in the morning at low tide, get to coos before the wind came up and the tide shifted, and then get past bandon and cross new river on the evening tide. Original plan was port orford but that wasn’t happening. Floras lake would do and we’d still just maybe have a shot at sub 6. Rolling down the beach to coos bay the wind started to come up early. I had to choose between exiting at hosefall and doing the road around coos bay or sticking to the beach a little longer and attempting the crossing. Hannah was at the boat launch and things looked good but we both know they might look very different by the time I got there. The math wasn’t perfectly clear but I did know if we couldn’t cross that backtracking and adding all the road miles would not only kill sub 6 but we might also loose the overall record completely. At this point I knew how relentlessly Nick moved through this thing and I couldn’t really loose time on him. We had pretty much been neck and neck and this was my last shot to jump ahead and stay there. I committed to paddling coos bay in a little packraft. As we knew would probably be the case the wind was hooting and the tide had switched and the bay was in terrible shape when I arrived. The wind was trying to rip the raft out of my hands as an approached the bay. 6’ wind waves, 6’ packfraft. No go. I turned around. I Took a few minutes to cry about it and and told Hannah we might have just lost the record. I didn’t know for sure. But sitting around doing math wasn’t the answer. Changed shoes and started running back towards the highway. Along the way I worked on the math and it seemed doable to somehow pull it off. At least worth taking our best shot at it. Coos bay bridge was the scariest part of the whole trip. Gusty crosswind trying to blow me off the little ledge into a continuous stream of traffic. Had to grip the railing the entire way. Made it to north bend and took a few more minutes to cry in a public restroom and then fully let it go. It was time to do everything possible to get the record. Made it over seven Devils and down the beach to bandon quick. I was getting the stoke back and although I was 30 miles behind the plan, I finished about 70 miles that day and stayed in the game. My coach told me to expect one bad day. This was it but I was pretty proud to be able to immediately put the mistake aside and get back on track. We turned a bad day into a good day to be proud of and ended up being one of the most important parts of the trip for me. Thomas was waiting in bandon to hop in and pace the last 105 to the border. Go time
Day 6
I slept great again and woke up fired up to go. We got out of bandon at 4:45am and worked our way toward floras lake. We had about 36 hours to cover 105 miles. Sounds easy enough right? 320 miles in I knew it would be close. We would still need sleep at some point and we’d pretty much have to nail that strategy. Really we needed to be leaving cape Sebastian around 3:30am ideally after enough sleep to get us to the border without needing naps and waist time. but we would just let that puzzle reveal itself as we got closer. For now, get to gold beach as fast as possible. It was slow…We didn’t know how long the notorious steep/soft new river beach section was going to take but we knew if we made good progress we’d catch the sixes right at the bottom of a +.9 foot low tide. Which would probably do the trick. Made it to the sixes literally at the stroke of low tide and crossed without thinking twice. Piece of cake. Knew the Elk would be easy if we made it down there quick. After the elk i was so stoked to have the last of the tidal crossings done. But I got pretty sleepy so we partied with some caffeine pills and finished off the worst of the beaches left. Powered up in port orford and started the push to gold beach. I knew crossing the rogue would feel huge and at that point we could really start to see where we were at and tune in a good plan. Coming into humbug mountain it got super hot. I got a little cooked and struggled to keep up with fluids but did good enough to get through the day. Right before otter rock I started to feel something funky. I had started to neglect my feet a little to make better time and they were falling apart. No time to fuss about it. This was just going to get ugly and I was ok with that. Left otter rock at 9pm with a plan to make it to hunter creek for a nap. Gold beach wasn’t far enough and the top of cape Sebastian was too far and we couldn’t risk getting caught out zombie walking or doing trail naps. I hadn’t had any really unproductive time so far and we couldn’t start with it now. Fired up on the new plan and in cool dark air we got around gold beach quick and hit a 2 hour nap at around 11pm at Hunter Creek.
Day 7
At this point I was literally racing Nicks ghost. Which was actually super fun. But super hard. He’s not easy to race. Leaving at 1:45am I covered the five miles to where his ghost was sleeping up on cape Sebastian his last night and we left there at around the same time at 3:30 am or so. It was super foggy and spooky up there and I was dealing with wierd balance issues and dizzy spells. But eating and drinking ok so not worried about it too much. My pacer Thomas has the course record on the secret beach 50k and knows the whole stretch from where we slept to brookings super well and he just went full nav captain. I stopped paying attention to anything besides eating and moving. Epic sunrise at the pistol river and we made it down the highway to Sam Boardman. This section is an absolute maze with a ton of sneaky vert and the opportunity to make wrong turns every couple of feet. I know this section was going to be slow and tricky but if we didn’t screw it up and didn’t break myself on the hurt 100 terrain I’d be able to empty it in the last 12 road miles through brookings. We had to be there by 5pm and I wanted to be there by 3. I didn’t scout this section or pay much attention to it since I’d done it already and I was really surprised to see the china beach tide alternate. We had no idea what the tide was since we weren’t even tracking it and didn’t have service to check. I was super bummed about it but we skipped the beach and stayed up high on the trail. I still couldn’t tell when we made it to whales head beach but it looked mid to high and I think we made the right call. Passed a bunch of fresh NOBO hikers through here and shared some stoke. Got to lone ranch at noon and Hannah and Thomas were both surprised to hear me claim I could make it the last 12 in 3 hours. It was closer to 14 but I still did it in just over 3. Crossing the chetco got me pretty fired up and right in the other side of the bridge, my mom, dad and sister were waiting to surprise me. I lost it. Cried all over them and sent it to the finish. There wasn’t much walking after that. Wanted to make it before 3pm so bad but it was a little farther than expected. Came in about 4 minutes past the hour.
Hung out at the beach for a minute with the family and then went up to the visitor center to sign the log book and they gave me a sweet OCT hat. Then it was over.
I wore 2 watches because I’ve had my garmin brick during a 200 and I didn’t want to have to start over. lol. The one I ran the whole time was on ultra trac it in was clearly running short miles the whole time. It totaled 450.6 miles which is obviously ridiculous. The other watch I started and stopped each day and it added up to 428.52 which I think is still a touch high. Probably closer to 415-420?
Truly a special adventure and a life changer for sure. So happy to have my first longer FKT under my belt and can’t wait for another one!
-Jameson