Oregon's Coastline:
350-Mile Retreat
by Janice Rosenberg
 The rugged coast of Oregon is a stretch of land unlike any other. From Astoria in the north to Brookings in the south is a span of roughly 350 miles made up of sandy beaches, lush evergreen forests, rugged cliffs and giant sand dunes, interspersed with charming towns and villages.
No matter where you start your travels along this elegant span of coastline, you’ll find something to please every member of the family.
The main road is the famed U.S. Highway 101, which winds its way along the Pacific Ocean carrying visitors eager to hike, bike, surf, swim, explore, play golf, hunt antiques, dine and shop.
Distances between towns are short with designated stops along the way for viewing whales and otters, hiking forest paths or touring lighthouses. Numerous visitor centers offer guidance on the best of everything.
As a pilot, you have the choice of several jumping off spots for this trip along the Western border of the Beaver State. Be sure to call ahead to reserve a rent-a-car. Seeing all the Oregon Coast has to offer requires getting down-to-earth.
You’ll find some favorites among the following highlights, but be sure to make your own discoveries, and let us know what you find.
 Astoria
The oldest United States settlement west of the Rockies, Astoria was established in 1811 as Fort Astoria by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company.
By the late 1800s, Astoria’s salmon canneries, and forest and shipping industries had created a lively boomtown. Marine Drive, its main street, was crammed with saloons and brothels. Many were equipped with built-in trap doors, which were used for “shanghaiing” drunken customers who sometimes woke up halfway across the Pacific.
Today visitors stop to see the impressive Astoria Column, built in 1926 to commemorate the westward sweep of discovery and migration. Wrapped in a pictorial frieze, it’s the world’s only large piece of memorial architecture made of reinforced concrete. Climb 164 winding steps to the top for a spectacular view.
At the Columbia River Maritime Museum see one of the most extensive collections of nautical artifacts on the West Coast. Kids will enjoy exploring marine transportation from the days of dugout canoes, through the age of tall-ship sailing, to the present.
Have a look around Fort Stevens State Park where residents first built fortifications to guard against Confederate raiders during the Civil War. Walk miles of clean ocean beaches and explore the beached wreck of the ship “Peter Iredale.”
Seaside
Located at the western end of the Lewis and Clark trail, Seaside is a national landmark as well as an endearing—if a bit tacky—family resort where the kids can ride the Town Center Carousel and bumper cars. The Seaside Aquarium on the town’s oceanfront “Prom” displays deep sea creatures in 35 tanks.
Nine miles south, Cannon Beach provides an up market alternative. In late May or early June the town is enlivened by the annual Sandcastle Competition. Off the wide sandy beach, a black monolith, Haystack Rock rises 240 feet from the water.
 Tillamook
Land at Tillamook Airport for a visit to the Tillamook Navel Air Station Museum, located on the airport’s grounds inside a World War II blimp hanger.
Inside this “world’s largest wooden structure,” the museum displays a collection of more than 30 War Birds including a P51-Mustang and an SBD Dauntless dive bomber. Dine at the Air Base Café, a 1950s style hangout serving burgers, fries, chili and shakes.
Tillamook to Lincoln City
Leave Highway 101 for a drive along a 35-mile byway, the Three Capes Loop. Stop at each cape for a unique antidote to tourist life on route 101.
Check out the bizarre “octopus tree” at Cape Meares. Overlook precipitous cliffs at Cape Lookout State Park and try a short jaunt on one of two walking trails -- a nature trail and the Jackson Creek trail. Picnic on the beach at Cape Kiwanda with a view of Haystack Rock just offshore. Rejoin Highway 101 at Pacific City.
Further south, hike the Nature Conservancy trail in Cascade Head Preserve, a critical habitat for native prairie grasses, rare wildflowers and the Oregon silverspot butterfly. Elk, deer, coyote, snowshoe hare and the Pacific giant salamander frequent the preserve. Bald eagle, great horned owl, northern harrier, red-tail hawk and the occasional peregrine falcon soar in hunting forays over the grassy slopes.
 Lincoln City
Lincoln City earned renown as “The Kite Flying Capital of the World,” and was voted the best kite flying location in America by Kitelines Magazine. The town is positioned on the 45th parallel, where just the right amount of warm equatorial air mixed with cold polar air lifts kites almost as high as airplanes. As a result, Lincoln City plays host to a number of summer and fall kite festivals. The colorful creations of all shapes and sizes rise high over the beach, whipping and turning at the whim of their handlers.
With seven-and-one-half miles of uninterrupted walkable beach, Lincoln City is the perfect place for tide pooling. Rock formations along the coast create these on-shore basins replete with crabs, starfish, urchins and anemones. Check a tide chart and hit the beach an hour before low tide for the best viewing. Be patient – watch until you see motion. If you gently touch a snail or urchin, it may return the favor.
From mid-October through Memorial Day keep your eyes peeled along the beaches for one of 2,005 glass floats. Local “float fairies” scatter a few of these round globes each day -- like those once used by Japanese fishing crews to float their nets -- for beachcombers to find and keep. Each is a signed, numbered work of art created by a glass artist from the country’s Northwest region.
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Depoe Bay
Depoe Bay’s location on the world’s smallest year-round navigable harbor means charter fishing and whale watching boats make their way to open sea in a matter of minutes.
Billed as the “Whale Watching Capital of the World!” this tiny town runs along a sea wall where on stormy days you’ll see spouting horns—rock formations that turn crashing waves into plumes of water.
A pod of gray whales calls Depoe Bay home 10 months a year (they’re out of town from the end of November to mid-December). March through November they may be as close as 100 feet off shore.
Here and elsewhere along the Oregon Coast, allow time for whale watching. With 28 official whale watching sites and 250 gray whales hanging out along the coast, chances are you’ll catch a glimpse of one of these big creatures without leaving dry land.
For adventurous travelers, companies in many towns along the coast offer Zodiac Boat whale watch cruises. Zodiacs are small fiberglass boats, each with an air filled “sponson,” or tube, attached around its edges for buoyancy in rough seas. You’ll speed along the water, having a blast and communing with whales who swim right beside you.
If you tend toward seasickness, a larger whale watching ship may be more your cup of tea. You won’t get as close to the whales, but you’ll have an indoor area where you can stay warm while you scope out whales and dolphins.
Consult the Depoe Bay Whale Center to find out where whales have last been sighted along the coast. Or if you miss the real thing, come in to watch whale movies.
 Newport
Vacationers have been coming to Newport, once the Honeymoon Capital of Oregon, since 1856 for its artsy atmosphere and more. On your way into town from the north, stop at the Flying Dutchman Winery in Otter Rock.
Just north of town, visit the Devil’s Punchbowl State Natural Area to view whales, and Moolack Beach, famous among fossil hunters. If you fly into Newport Municipal Airport, head north toward town across the scenic Yaquina Bay Bridge.
Wander down to Newport’s historic Bayfront, where shoppers and diners linger watching crab fishers unload their boats while sea lions bark and frolic on the docks. A pair of arts centers, one performing and one visual, draw visitors to uncrowded Nye Beach.
Consider a round of golf overlooking the ocean at Agate Beach Golf Course or visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium to view more than 15,000 animals, representing 500 species including sea otters, seals, sea lions, sharks and octopi. At the Hatfield Marine Science Center learn about major threats to the undersea environment and observe five large tanks of ornamental fish species, including the “Finding Nemo” multi-striped clownfish.
A visit to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, one of 11 Oregon Coast lighthouses, is a must. Built in 1871 on a windy promontory, it stands out as Oregon’s only lighthouse with an attached living quarters. It’s also the state’s tallest lighthouse at 93-feet and the state’s last remaining historic wooden lighthouse. Nearby the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area provides the only tide pooling in the world with access for disabled visitors.
Yachats
Un-crowded beaches in this quiet town of just 617 souls beckon rock hounds, beachcombers, fishermen and women, clam diggers and picnickers View dramatic surf action along rocky promontories or visit the 2,700-acre Cape Perpetua Scenic Area.
A Sitka spruce rainforest that transitions to the sea, in the early 1960s this unique area was set aside for preservation from the Siuslaw National Forest. Tide pools and crashing waves along the area’s rocky inter-tidal shoreline contrast with managed forests and wildflower meadows.
The Cape Perpetua Interpretive Center explains the cultural and natural history of the area and serves as the starting point for a leg-stretching 23 miles of hiking trails. Try a two-mile loop to the Giant Spruce Tree, a massive living structure more than 500 years old. Walk in the cool shade of impressive western hemlock, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce trees. Shorter paved walks along the beach lead to sites such as the Spouting Horn, Restless Waters and Devil’s Churn.
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Florence
Five miles north of town budding botanists will want to take a loop trail walk at the Darlingtonia Botanical Wayside. Along the boardwalk, creepy carnivorous Darlingtonia plants, commonly known as pitcher plants, trap insects with their sweet smell, then digest them for nutrients.
Also north of town, take a free tour of the Haceta Head Lighthouse. Still active, it sends out the most powerful beacon on the Oregon Coast. First illuminated in 1894, its light is visible 21 miles out to sea. Chance Bros. of London manufactured the first-order Fresnel lens containing eight panels lined with 640 prisms, each two inches thick.
Heceta House, once a duplex where the lighthouse keeper’s two assistants lived, sits nearby.
Continue south for the pleasures of a stay in Florence, named as the number one retirement community in the nation by David Savageau in his book “Retirement Places Rated,” (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). Recently the town spent half a million dollars improving the lighted, 3,000 foot runway at the airport (6S2).
Established in 1876 as a hub of river commerce, the town profited from fur trading, ship building and logging industries. Today Florence’s “old town” district features a fine mix of stores, restaurants and offices. Sample marionberry ice cream at one of the friendly shops.
South of Florence cross the Siuslaw River Bridge, one of a half-dozen WPA-built spans designed by Conde McCullough and decorated with his trademark Egyptian obelisks and art deco details. Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, running south for 50 miles to Coos Bay, offers typical coast attractions. Bird watch for eagles, hawks, great blue herons, egrets, pelicans and gangs of plover.
 Wild Rivers Coast
Historic villages, working ports and lighthouses, beaches and protected forests dot the Wild Rivers Coast as it stretches between Port Orford, Oregon, and Crescent City, California.
Eight major rivers and dozens of creeks running to meet the ocean, provide the perfect environment for steelhead and salmon fishing as well as excursions in canoes, kayaks and jet boats. Enormous coastal redwoods, Port Orford cedar and Oregon myrtlewood thrive in the nearby forests. Rugged mountains rise above smooth sandy beaches.
A stay in Gold Beach, where the Rogue River meets the sea, can involve nothing more than quiet beach walks and hours of tide pooling. For the adventurous, windsurfing opportunities abound. In this fiercely protected wilderness area you’ll see the Oregon coast at its most natural, untouched by modern intrusions.
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Best of
Oregon's Coastline
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Best Season: Late August and anytime in September are the best months for a visit. The weather tends to be more predictable, the summer winds have died down and, in September, crowds diminish as kids return to school.
Best Landing: Pilots flying the Oregon Coast have a choice of several airports. Land at Astoria Regional Airport (KAST), where the Columbia River separates Oregon from Washington State, and trek south. Fuel, rent-a-cars and a café make this airport, with its nearly 5,000 foot runway and ILS approach, an excellent choice.
Or land halfway down the coast at Newport Municipal Airport (KONP) -- with a runway just under 5,400 feet, rent-a-cars, plenty of tie downs, fuel, ILS approach and available hangar rentals -- and hop on the highway in either direction.
Smaller airports where you might touch down include Tillamook Airport (S47), Siletz Bay State Airport (S45) near Lincoln City, Florence Municipal Airport (6S2) and Gold Beach Municipal Airport (4S1).
Best Place to Stay: Owner Goody Cable named the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport as tribute to Sylvia Beach, owner of the Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore in Paris during the 1920s. Each of 20 guestrooms in this rehabbed 1910 beachfront hotel is dedicated to an author. Memorabilia and books fill charming, comfortable rooms that vary in size from the cozy Willa Cather to the roomy Mark Twain. Relax in the top floor library with books, coffee and ocean views. Reserve a place for a family-style but sophisticated dinner that combines delicious food with scintillating conversation. Room prices include excellent breakfasts featuring specialties such as a blue cheese quiche and banana hot cakes.
Best Romantic Adventure: Perched on a cliff halfway between Yachats and Florence, the Haceta Head Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast, a restored Queen Anne-style keeper’s house, offers excellent views of the ocean and beach below. Victorian décor with modern amenities invite a trip back in time. View the lighthouse at night for a magical, romantic and unforgettable experience. Next day, feast on a seven-course breakfast.
Best Place to Eat: A trip to Oregon would not be complete without a stop at Mo’s. Six locations along the coast offer everything from fish and chips, to shrimp salads, to Mo’s signature clam chowder. The original spot in Newport opened in 1940. At the branch located between Depoe Bay and Newport you’ll see the chair where “The Boss” (singer Bruce Springsteen) sat on June 11, 1987.
Best Way to Get Around: Driving a car allows you to stop spontaneously at viewpoints, sites and towns along the way.
Best Planning Resources: Travel Oregon, www.traveloregon.com
Oregon Coast Visitors Association,
visittheoregoncoast.com |
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