Dave’s Detours: The Amanda Trail
By Dave Powell
For Oregon Coast TODAY
It is 1864.
Amanda De Cuys, a blind Coos woman, is force-marched 80 miles up the Oregon Coast to the Alsea Sub-agency of the Coast Indian Reservation at Yachats. Amanda was removed from her daughter, Julia, and common-law husband when he refused to marry her. Over the sharp rocks at Cape Perpetua her feet are cut so badly she leaves a bloody trail. Reaching the Alsea Sub-agency camp, there is no further note of her but it is thought she was among at least 300 Indians who died at the military camp. There is no tombstone to mark her death.
It has been more than six years since I moved to the Oregon Coast in December 2015. The Yachats New Year’s Day Peace Hike was on my to do list. About a week after I arrived, the hike had to be rerouted to the Ya’Xaik Trail as Amanda’s Grotto and the fiberglass bridge was devastated by a clear-cut landslide. I started hiking sections of the Oregon Coast Trail — eventually reaching Yachats before the replacement bridge was started in mid-April 2016. The walk on Highway 101 was dangerous, even with no hiking pack and wearing running shoes instead of boots. I shared my insights about the danger with J.R. Collier of Oregon State Parks. He said it best, “What is it about the North Coast?” The answer is lots of rain and erosion. Trails require maintenance — lots of it. In six weeks, 78 people rebuilt the damaged Amanda Trail, using part of the damaged bridge as a temporary crossing. Volunteers included Oregon State Parks and federal Forest Service personnel, Yachats Trails volunteers, the Urban Forestry Program of the Angell Job Corps, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, County Corrections Crew and more worked to re-open Amanda by Memorial Day weekend. The replacement Amanda statue was donated by Beth Cook and Joan Wikler. And for years I hike through Yachats doing the Oregon Coast Trail.
The new suspension bridge for the Amanda Trail will be dedicated this Saturday, May 20. The lower bridge was destroyed in December 2015. The trail and the bridge are the result of decades of work. In 1984 Loyd Collett, director of Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, attended a seminar by Dr. Stephen Beckham on Native American history and decided to name the trail on the north side of Cape Perpetua after Amanda. The trail remained unbuilt for safety reasons since Siuslaw National Forest property ended at Highway 101 in a dangerous manner. In 1990, Joanne and Norman Kittel, even before they moved to Oregon in 1993, met with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to set rough trail path through their property connecting to Cape Perpetua. In 1997 the Amanda Trail was built by Angell Job Corps and other volunteers, a distance of 2.1 miles, with an easement allowing half a mile of trail on the Kittels’ property. The budgeted cost was $10,500, according to Dale Dawson, who was involved at the start. On Labor Day weekend the original bridge was built by Siuslaw National Forest staff, Angell Job Corps, the Kittels and friends. In April 1998 the trail was dedicated in front of an audience of 120 people, including several tribal members. Yachats had previously been shunned by tribal members as it had been a deadly prison. You would think that ends the story about the trail, but everything always takes longer (think of the home improvement rule of thumb, ie: twice as long, twice as expensive). It took until 2010 for the Amanda trail to make the final connection to the town of Yachats.
The effort to replace the bridge attracted funding through grants and donations. Then COVID happened. Several organizations kept faith, grant deadlines where extended and individuals continued to donate. Funding partners include View the Future, the Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund, Three Rivers Foundation, Discover Your Northwest, Economic Development Alliance of Lincoln County, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.
The Amanda Trail, originally planned at $10,500, ended up having a $1 million facelift.
The project has benefited from the work of hundreds of volunteers over the years.
Joanne Kittel and her late husband, Norman, donated thousands of hours, thousands of dollars of property, and made all this possible with a permanent easement and protection.
Due to space limitations, tickets are required for the weekend’s dedication events. The celebration at Amanda’s Grotto is full, as is the evening performance of the play “Amanda Transcending.”
To reserve a place for the dedication livestream at Yachats City Hall or Sunday’s 2 pm presentation of “Amanda Transcending,” go to viewthefuture.org and click on “2022 Bridge Dedication.”