Get Outdoors Oregon Day

“Oregonians have invested in land conservation to protect special places and our quality of life. Land trusts help maintain open space, clean water, clean air, working forests, working farms, and places for wildlife to thrive,” said Kelley Beamer, executive director of the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. “With Get Outdoors Day, we want Oregonians to connect with the land and feel inspired.”

Get Outdoors Oregon Day, led by the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, is part of a week celebrating outdoor recreation in Oregon June 2 through 10. COLT encourages Oregonians to explore, discover and learn about Oregon’s special places that week. Land trust events on Get Outdoors Oregon Day range from nature writing to wildflower hikes, geology walks, kid-led butterfly adventures, estuary oyster explorations and invasive plant removal. Locations are in every corner of Oregon: Port Orford, John Day, Enterprise, Klamath Falls, Eugene, Corvallis, Mosier, Portland, plus Seaside and more. A complete list is available at getoutdoorsoregon.org.

Here are four events taking place on/or near the coast on June 9th. Please click the link to register for each event. 

• 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. - Seaside, NORTH COAST LAND CONSERVANCY: GET OUTDOORS AT CIRCLE CREEK
• 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. - Port Orford, WILD RIVERS LAND TRUST: GET OUT WITH WILDFLOWERS
• 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Seal Rock (Brian Booth State Natural Area Bioblitz), THE WETLANDS CONSERVANCY: BIOBLITZ AND OYSTER DISCOVERY ON THE CENTRAL COAST
• 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Newport (Native Oyster 101), THE WETLANDS CONSERVANCY: BIOBLITZ AND OYSTER DISCOVERY ON THE CENTRAL COAST

Part of the National Get Outdoors effort, Get Outdoors Oregon Day is a chance to get outside—whether by attending a land trust event, exploring Oregon’s hiking trails or enjoying a local park with family. At Circle Creek, geologist Tom Horning and naturalist Mike Patterson will lead an exploration of the Necanicum River floodplain forest and lower reaches of Tillamook Head in their many stages: newly planted, dead and decaying, and everything in between. The outing will begin at Circle Creek, one of NCLC’s largest habitat reserves and also one of its most dynamic. From there participants will venture into 340-acre Boneyard Ridge, another large NCLC habitat reserve serving as a habitat bridge between Circle Creek and Ecola State Park. Details about this and other summer outings on NCLC lands are available here.

Land trusts, also known as land conservancies, such as NCLC are nonprofit organizations that actively work to conserve land in local communities. In Oregon, there are more than 20 of them. Oregon land trusts have protected more than 400,000 acres of land—nearly four times of that owned by Oregon State Parks. Some of these special places that are owned or managed by land trusts are closed to the public because they have sensitive species or resources, are difficult to access, or lack facilities to support regular public visitation. Circle Creek is open to the public for trail-walking and wildlife-watching.

“Oregonian’s love wild places and land trusts have played an important role in protecting a vast network of these landscapes in our state,” said Kathleen Ackley, executive director of Wallowa Land Trust and board president of COLT. “We work with willing landowners to voluntarily protect the places and values we all hold dear, from the native grasslands in the east to the wild coastal edge on the west. Land trusts help those who care for the land pass it on, work to restore and steward critical habitat, and connect people to place.”