NORTH BEND — More than halfway through his journey, a whiskered Al LePage strolled into the Coos County Historical Society Museum parking lot on Saturday morning.

He was looking forward to his next venture, a 4.5-mile jaunt along a little-known historic logging trail over to Coos Bay and out to Empire.

“It went from McCullough Bridge all the way to the boat landing,” LePage said.

A modern-day explorer, LePage was exploring the historic link along the Oregon Coast Trail through his 400-mile Oregon Coast Legacy Hike — July 14 through Aug. 12 from the Washington to the California border.

Eight years ago, while examining an 1858 U.S. Army surveyors’ map, the National Coast Trail Association executive director discovered a small dotted line snaking across the area. It was labeled “first sawmill trail.” The trail went from the former Simpson mill near the McCullough Bridge and skirted three little lakes to end at a spot where logs were loaded onto ships at what’s now the Empire Boat Ramp.

When the 54-year-old first saw the map, he had never heard of John Topits Park or Empire Lakes, but he knew this was a significant find. All the while, some North Bend residents, too, were hoping to develop a section of the trail.

The sawmill trail ran through an older neighborhood in North Bend, along Pony Slough, across a bridge between the North Bend middle and high schools near an existing footbridge. It meandered to a stoplight, up a hill through a residential area and down around the lakes to the boat ramp.

“It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful,” LePage said. “You’ve got possibly the most unique portion of the Oregon Coast Trail on the whole coast.”

He envisions an educational trail starting at the museum.

“It’s four and a half miles and it’s intact,” he said. “All you need is the interpretive signage. There’s no reason why the historical society couldn’t apply for a grant.”

Someone has, but local efforts to develop a portion of it failed.

Steve Skinner, a member of the North Bend’s Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee, said part of the trail LePage was hiking is Pony Creek trail, a trail he and other board members had tried to develop years ago.

“We even had a $600,000 grant from (the Oregon Department of Transportation) basically trying to extend the trails at the bridge over to the creek,” Skinner said by phone Sunday.

About four years ago, the city had to forfeit the grant after discovering, with ODOT engineer and design planning, nothing would be left for trail development. Skinner would like to coordinate with LePage, if possible, on matching up the trail sections.

“There’s a huge interest in getting that hiking trail around the bay,” Skinner said. “This would be a good marriage — just getting everybody on the same page.”

The tiny urban trail through North Bend and Coos Bay is unique, but it’s not the only focus of LePage’s efforts.

Spending each night camping out under the stars, with little more than energy bars and the clothes on his back, he is stopping at places he considers so special they are worth preserving.

LePage draws inspiration from the association’s goal to develop a trail system along the 1,800-mile West Coast Trail from Washington to the Mexican border, of which the Oregon Coast Trail plays an important part.

Although he can’t invite others to walk with him for liability reasons, he has enjoyed the company of those he’s met along the way. LePage started his hike on the same date he first hiked it 20 years ago. He plans to share how it has changed in one generation. He has taken about 700 pictures along the way.

“I’ve got a field office and it’s actually the Oregon Coast,” he said.

After hiking 23 miles on Friday, at about 10 p.m., LePage stumbled in the dark into another of the coast’s “special places” — Horsfall Beach, within the 40-mile-long Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area — where he spent the night in the grass on the edge of the dunes.

“When you’re lying there looking at the stars and ocean, you’ve got time in front of you as big as it can be,” LePage said. “We’re talking about eternal landscapes and that can change real quickly and eternity will be lost,” he said.

Saturday began at 6 a.m., when he encountered one of the unpleasant aspects of the hike.

“I felt like the Pied Piper from Horsfall to the McCullough Bridge,” he said, “because I was being followed by mosquitoes.”

Washing his clothes has mainly consisted of wading through creeks and he remembers a particularly good bath in Tahkenitch Creek, with his swimming trunks on.

The water “must have been 70 degrees. It was awesome,” he said.

LePage said the hike is giving him the opportunity to live out his childhood fantasy to be a mountain man, like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. But there is a slight difference between LePage and the mountain men of American folklore.

A trail-weary LePage couldn’t wait Saturday to find the nearest Italian restaurant so he could order a large pizza — and devour it.