Amanda's Trail of Sorrow in Yachts Oregon.

Amanda's Trail of Sorrow also known as Amanda's Trail is an Oregon Coast hike with history. When I first came across this hike it was immediately placed on my Oregon Hiking Bucket List. This hike starts in Yachts Oregon and goes to Amanda's Grotto if you take the trail for the 7.8-mile out-and-back hike you will reach Cape Perpetua which is the highest point on the Oregon Coat. A word of warning. The hike to Amanda's Grotto is pretty mellow but moving on to Cape Perpetua the hike is steep, muddy, and there are down trees. The trees are easy enough to get around. I did come across a couple of girls along the trail up to Cape Perpetua who were crying. I asked If there was something I could do but they just said they needed to rest because the trail is harder than they expected. They did have water, but I gave them both a Luna Bar for some extra energy.

The legend of the trail is no secret, but it contains a darkness many Oregonians would rather forget. Local trail managers keep hikers in mystery for the first mile and a half before reaching the iconic Amanda Statue and, posted on a sign nearby, the story of Amanda herself. The trail is on private property so please stay on the trail.

The trail runs through the former Coast Indian Reservation, established via a treaty in 1855 with the Coastal Tribes of Oregon. The reservation ran from Cape Lookout south to Siltcoos, and was supposed to be a place where local tribes could live in peace. But as hostilities between the native population and settlers grew, volunteer militias known as the "exterminators" began to round up the tribes of southwest Oregon and confined them to the new reservation on the Pacific.

Over the next decade, natives routinely ran away from the reservation, fleeing abuse and starvation at the hands of U.S. Native American Agents. The job then fell to the U.S. military to round up the runaways and march them back. Corporal Royal Bensell documented his company's time catching "Squaws" and "Bucks," which in spring 1864 included a Coos woman named Amanda.

Amanda De-Cuys was old and blind, living with a white settler near Coos Bay, 50 miles outside of the Coast Reservation. She left her husband and young daughter behind as Bensell and his company began the long march up the rugged coastline to Yachats. Today, that journey can be accomplished on the Oregon Coast Trail, but back then conditions were treacherous.

Two days into the trip, one Indian Agent proposed leaving all the women behind to die, as "it will cost too much because of the length of transportation," Bensell wrote. Four days later, the Corporal complained of only walking 10 miles in the day, "so slow and solemn did we go." When they reached the sharp basalt shoreline near Cape Perpetua, old Amanda "tore her feet horribly over jagged rocks leaving blood sufficient to track her by."

After 10 days of walking, the band reached Yachats. The company turned over the natives to the Indian Agents and, according to Bensell "we all left relieved." Amanda's fate from there is a mystery, but the fate of the Coast Indian Reservation is well documented. By 1875, the entire reservation was dismantled for white settlement, the remaining tribal population was moved to Siletz and Grand Ronde Reservations.

In Yachats, that history remained quiet for generations. It came back up in 1984, when Loyd Collett, a trail planner with the Siuslaw National Forest, discovered the story and decided to name a proposed trail after Amanda, dedicating it to the memory of the Native Americans who were marched along the same coastline more than a century earlier.

The current statue is the second to grace the trail. In December 2015, a storm wiped out the entire Amanda Grotto, burying the statue in a pile of rubble and mud. The new Amanda now sits just north of the old grotto. There are many benches here where you can take some time and reflect or just pay homage.

The trail officially opened in the spring of 1998, drawing a crowd of 120 people to Amanda Grotto, where the statue of Amanda De-Cuys stands proud, a representative of the people who first lived in what would become the state of Oregon.

"The Amanda Trail today commemorates the dark events of Oregon's transition from Native domain to U.S. statehood," the sign near the statue reads. "It is through the recognition of these events that the new communities and the original peoples are coming together to restore native ways in the modern world."

From here you can turn around or you can be brave and get a great workout and hike up to Cape Perpetua. The first thing you see if you continue is a suspension bridge which you have to cross.

Once you get over the Suspension bridge you will come to another shrine gate and continue forward and go up four switchbacks. It will eventually level out but not for long.

Eventually, you will come to a bog and there are reports of waterlily here, but I didn't see any. After the bog, you get a false sense of security because you then go off the old logging road and go downhill. Now the trail ascends steeply and there are a bunch of tree roots to deal with along with the elevation gain. You will eventually come to a historic Stone Hut.

Continue on from here and you come to the end of the tail with a great view of Cape Perpetua.

To get here take Route 101 to Yachts Oregon. Go to the Yachts Ocean Road trailhead and park in the large parking lot. This is a pet-friendly hike, but your pet MUST be on a lease. It is also family-friendly up to Amanda's Grotto but after that, I would not recommend bringing the little ones because you will be more worried about their safety instead of enjoying the hike. The section with the tree roots can be difficult especially if the roots are wet. Bring plenty of water and you are in the shade for the majority of the hike because of the Stika Spruce.