A map of the headland between Neskowin and Lincoln City, which includes sections of public and private land.

Cascade Head is one of those special places.

The Hart’s Cove Trail is a favorite of my dad and I. Sitka spruce and hemlock slopes, with an understory of ferns and the occasional mushroom-covered nurse log, open up to a high meadow of native grasses and rare wildflowers.

Below the headland, Chitwood Falls tumbles in a metallic shimmer onto the rocky shore of an untouched cove. Sea lions bark in the distance.

This hike is one of many within the expansive Cascade Head Scenic Research Area, a 9,670-acre headland preserve between Neskowin and Lincoln City on Oregon’s central coast.

On the last Saturday in June, the research area — designated so in 1974 by Congress as the first such scenic and ecological preserve in the United States — held a celebration of 50 years at the U.S. Forest Service Experimental Forest Headquarters, near Otis.

The afternoon drew a dozen or so speakers, including elected officials and conservationists.

Among those were Duncan Berry, a gyotaku printmaker, FisherPoet and co-director of the Cascade Head Biosphere Collaborative, who works from a studio on the preserve; Robert Kentta, a traditional artist and retired cultural resources director for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; and Bruce Byers, author of “The View from Cascade Head.”

Byers’ book, which was published by Oregon State University Press in 2020, outlines actions taken to preserve the area — now also a biosphere reserve and one of Oregon’s five marine reserves — while weaving in broader reflections on people and relationships with nature.

Over the summer and fall, the research area is offering 90-minute interpretive walking tours, beginning on Thursday.

A second commemorative event is planned for 6 p.m. Aug. 14 in the Otis Fire Hall. Cascade Head is just over 100 miles south, or about a 2 1/2-hour drive, from Astoria.