In September 2007, NRL, in partnership with multiple institutions, undertook a combined airborne multi-sensor remote sensing campaign and in situ validation effort. The experiment took place at the Virginia coast reserve (VCR'07), an NSF funded long term ecological research site (LTER) on the Eastern shore of Virginia [10]. The study area comprised an 1880 km2 region consisting of barrier islands, shallow water lagoons, and mainland marsh systems. This paper describes the results of a subset of experiments conducted during the campaign to demonstrate the retrieval of soil bearing strength directly from hyperspectral remote sensing on the VCR barrier islands.