Horseback Riding

Riding horseback on the beach is a unique experience. Whether you’re an experienced rider, bringing your own horse to the beach, or a first-time (or experienced) rider preferring a guided horseback ride on a horse familiar with the ocean – there’s options for both within a few miles of our two houses.

Crazy A’s Horse Hotel

https://www.crazyahorsehotel.com

Pamper yourself, your family … and your horse! Mountain trail or beach riding in the daytime followed by expansive grassy pasture and luxurious stalls with customized full care afterward…. It’s Spa Day for Equines. Located just a few miles from us, Crazy A’s Horse Hotel is a luxurious (but very reasonably priced) by-the-day or by-the-week horse boarding facility. Full customized care, immaculate 12×12 stalls, beautiful pasture, trailer parking.

Moe’s Beach & Trail Rides

https://moesbeachandtrailride.godaddysites.com

Private or group horseback rides along the beach and through the dunes of beautiful Bob Straub State Park in Pacific City. This beautiful park is dedicated to equestrians and hikers with no motorized vehicles permitted. Riders and horses are carefully matched according to skill level and preference. Experience the beauty of the Oregon coast, the hidden grasslands and dunes beyond, and a unique close-up perspective to wildlife with most animals readily accepting horses with riders as simply horses, feeling no instinct to hide and readily allowing close approach.

Multiplicity of places to ride – from beach to mountain top – all within a 17 mile range!

  • Tierra del Mar beach: Our Guardenia Street house And Pier Street house are located in the center of this beautiful 10-mile stretch of white sandy beach, beginning at the tidepools and sea caves of McPhillips Beach, located at the quiet and sheltered north side of Cape Kiwanda and stretching to Sand Lake Estuary, wildlife sanctuary and home to a diverse array of fish, bird, plant and wild game species. During low tide, the stream/river is often fordable, accessing the Sand Lake area (as below).
  • Sand Lake with 1,076 acres of the Siuslaw National Forest has some of the greatest dunes on the Oregon Coast!
  • Bob Straub State Park, on the beach by Pacific City, is an absolutely wonderful place to ride with 484 acres of quiet and peaceful trails and beach. Bob Straub State Park is unique in that fishing, hiking, and horseback riding are the only permitted activities.  No camping, no OHVs, no bikes.
  • Mount Hebo (3,164 feet high) is known for being one of the best, most easily accessed viewpoints in the north Oregon Coast, with a 360-degree view from the summit.
  • Miles of unused logging trails with beautiful views are literally just a few strides from the Crazy A’s boarding facility (see below).
  • Tillamook County Equestrian Trail Map: https://tillamookcoast.com/recreation-map/

Horse trails:

Bob Straub State Park Equestrian Trails https://nwhorsetrails.com/blogs/northwest-oregon-horse-trails/bob-straub-state-park Bob Straub State Park, in Pacific City, Oregon, features excellent year-round horseback riding.  The park lies on the Nestucca Spit, a narrow finger of land that separates Nestucca Bay from the Pacific Ocean.  The park is open only to hiking, fishing, and horseback riding, and it’s a delightful place to ride.

Beach & Marsh Trail Loop, Bob Straub State Park (Pacific City): https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/oregon/beach-and-marsh-trail-loop

Marsh, Bay, and River Trails Loop, Bob Straub State Park (Pacific City): https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/oregon/marsh-bay-and-river-trails-loop

Mt Hebo Horse Trailhead – accesses the Pioneer-Indian Trail: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/siuslaw/recreation/recarea/?recid=42713

Native Americans and early settlers used this trail to travel from the Willamette Valley to the Pacific Coast. The 8-mile trail passes Hebo Lake and South Lake as it traverses dense forest and open meadows (home to the Oregon silverspot butterfly) to the summit of Mt. Hebo, providing a spectacular 360-degree view. To the west is the vast Pacific Ocean with Cape Kiwanda and Haystack Rock near Pacific City, then Cape Lookout and Netarts Bay, then 3 Arch Rocks near Oceanside, and finally Tillamook Bay. From the summit, five of the snow-capped volcanic peaks of the Cascade Range are visible: Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier—more than 100 miles inland to the east.

History: In the 1850s, settlers in the Tillamook area constructed a trail over the Coast Range using old Native American paths. Somehow, heading up over the wind-blasted 3,154’ summit of Mt. Hebo was deemed the way to go. In a few years, a wagon road was carved along the Nestucca River and the trail was lost. Mt. Hebo’s summit became the site of a weather station and, from 1956 to 1980, a U.S. Air Force radar outpost, part of the line of defense against a Soviet missile attack. A residential area of 27 homes existed where the horse trailhead now is. Mt. Hebo’s weather was not kind to the military: three times during the existence of the station, the radar dome had to be replaced after being destroyed by storms. None of the original Air Force buildings remain and the land has reverted to the Siuslaw National Forest. In 1975, a USFS employee rediscovered traces of the old settler trail and an eight-mile section of the route was reestablished for hikers and horses.

Vacation with your horse on the Oregon coast.