Adventure on their own terms: Lewiston couple hiking Oregon Coast Trail one section at a time

On a rocky ledge along the Oregon Coast, Denise and Barney Metz timed the incoming waves, looking for a gap in the beautiful but menacing breakers.

“We waited until low tide and even then there was water, so you’re waiting for the waves to go out,” said Denise of a place named Hug Point. “He’s like, ‘Now run.’ I’m like, ‘Ohhh-kaaay,’ and you scramble up the rocks.”

On another occasion on the other side of the country, Barney nervously circled a block in Baltimore, Maryland, while narrating his moves to Denise. Men sitting on the steps of a nearby brownstone eyed him curiously as they took pulls from beer bottles hidden in paper bags.

“On the third time around he goes, ‘OK, I’m going for it,’ and I’m like – on the phone with him – saying, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ And he’s, ‘Well, call 911 if somebody kills me.’ ”

“He jumps out of the car and he goes and runs up and down this guy’s little patch of a yard and jumps back in the car and takes off,” Denise said.

Adventure is all around us. For the middle-aged Lewiston couple, it’s found hiking along the jagged strip of land where the Pacific Ocean smashes into Oregon and touching the highest point in each of the nation’s 3,000 counties.

In their spare time, Barney and Denise are trying to hike the entirety of the Oregon Coast Trail one section at a time. Barney has been a county high-pointer for three decades, with Denise and other family members occasionally tagging along on trips where the goal is to touch the highest elevation in as many counties as possible. Neither of them are Lycra-clad athletes pushing the boundaries of human endurance. But they enjoy pushing their own limits by setting and chasing goals.

“We love the outdoors. We like to hike. We like to walk and I’m a type-A personality, so having a checklist is great,” Barney said.

You may know them or recognize their names. Barney is the manager of the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District. Denise is the safety and security manager at Idaho Forest Group and is a Port of Lewiston commissioner.

Every inch, within reason

While visiting Astoria, Oregon, and exploring the Clatsop Spit, Barney mused that it would be cool to hike the entire coastline, hitting as many beaches as possible.

“Come to find out, there’s an actual Oregon Coast Trail,” he said.

A lot of people tackle it as a thru-hike – completing it in a single backpacking trip that stretches across many weeks. Some of them adhere to the EFI mantra – every (freaking) inch – that compels them to reject shortcuts or skip sketchy sections.

Instead of backpacking, Barney and Denise are doing it in small pieces and staying in hotels rather than roughing it. While they aren’t EFI’ers, you might call them EFB’ers. They are trying to hit all the beaches they can reach and opting to stay as close to the coast as possible. The trail sometimes jogs inland to go around impassable capes or to circumvent bays.

“There’s only so much I’m willing to do and risk,” Denise said. “But we do try for things like little hidden beaches and stuff if we can get to it.”

Because they are not “thru-putters” on a strict schedule, they often plan their trips to include small detours to little stretches of beach off the official trail that those looking to pound out the miles are unlikely to visit.

That part suits his penchant for planning and lists and maps. When possible, they arrange shuttles so they don’t have to double back.

“The great part about this is when you go to places that nobody else walks. There’s no other people. And you get to see the wildlife in the rarest form on the coast and you get history,” Barney said.

Hug Point was one of the detours. It was once on a stage coach route that hugged the point to get around the headland there. Later, a ledge was blasted out so early automobiles could traverse it. But it still has to be timed with the tides.

At places that involve more risk than they are comfortable with, Barney and Denise try their best to connect the dots by devising alternative routes. Sometimes that means turning back, driving around an obstacle, returning to the beach and hiking back to the other side of it. And then making sure they cover the span of the obstacle itself, either on a trail, highway or sometimes in a residential neighborhood far above it.

“We had one section after Hug Point that involved a really nasty outcropping and the only way to really get it was to go through the tunnel on Highway 101.”

But they did hike Cape Falcon a little farther south.

“You’re never not near the beach, but you’re high up on the cliffs,” said Barney. “And nobody hikes it, so the trail’s not in great shape because there’s not people taking care of it and they have so many storms. But what a day of hiking. We didn’t see anybody and the views were amazing.”

They’ve rolled up their pants and waded across a river when faced with a washed-out bridge. They also arranged a boat ride across the mouth of Nehalem River rather than hiking around Nehalem Bay.

Thus far, they’ve covered most of the trail, plus their improvisations, between Clatsop Spit near Astoria to Rockaway Beach. This summer they will backtrack and fill in a missing 6-mile section at Tillamook Head.

“For a couple of old farts that aren’t in the best of shape, it’s a pretty cool accomplishment,” said Denise. “It keeps us focused on some goal and it’s alone time and it’s beautiful, of course – it’s absolutely gorgeous, so you are never going to be bored with the scenery.”

Chasing highs

Barney belongs to an online group centered on high pointing. Cumulatively, they have visited the highest elevation points in 2,000 counties, and he has hit 70.

“It’s a fun hobby because there are 3,000-plus counties, so wherever you go, you can work on one.”

He was on a business trip when he hit that front yard in Baltimore. Some of the high points are on peaks. Others are less pronounced.

In Idaho’s Payette County, the highest point isn’t the top of a mountain or even the crest of the hill. Instead, it’s mid-slope on a hill that tops out in another county.

In such cases, high-pointers walk in a grid pattern to ensure they’ve actually touched the high point.

“I did this with my son, when he was little,” Barney said. “He thought it was just the dumbest one we’ve ever done. We were just walking on the side of a hill, like the Lewiston Hill, and going back and forth, back and forth. And in theory, at some point, we should have touched it.”

Barney is about 40% finished with another goal-oriented hiking obsession – this one closer to home.

“Before I die, I’m going to walk every street in the city,” he said of Lewiston. “It doesn’t matter if it’s left, right, north side, south side, east side or west, as long as you’ve touched the pavement.”