Tuesday, May 14, 2024 - Visit Oregon Coast (northern part)

With the elimination of visiting the Mt Hood area today, we moved up our next day’s itinerary to visit the Oregon Coast.  Since we were going to come back to the hotel in the evening, we decided to drive to the southmost coastal attraction and then visited all attractions from south to north.  

The first stop we made was Neahkahnie Viewpoint on Highway 101.  The Neahkahnie Viewpoint, offered a fascinating display of Oregon's coastal magnificence. No hike is needed to reach this vantage point, which overlooks clean and fresh beaches and the rough/uneven cliffs. The crashing waves together with the chorus of seabirds, creating a sensory symphony that reflects the untamed beauty of the Pacific.  There are 3 pullout areas for stopping and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  

Then, we drove to Cannon Beach to visit the Haystack Rock and Ecola State Park.  After we arrived to Cannon Beach, we just following the crowd and road signs and found the public parking for visiting Haystack Rock.  Therefore, Haystack Rock was our next stop.

We did not have much expectation about Haystack Rock.  After we got close to Cannon Beach, we can see the majestic Haystack Rock in distance with a lot of tourists there.

Haystack Rock is one of Oregon’s most recognizable landmarks, home to colorful tide pools

and diverse birdlife. It has been featured in countless novels, television programs, and movies such as the Goonies and Kindergarten Cop. This basalt sea stack rises 235 feet from the edge of the shoreline. Since it was low tide, therefore we were able to walk right up to it and find colorful sea stars and other fascinating tidepool creatures in its intertidal area. It was about a 10 minutes walk on the beach to get close to it.  When we got there, we found reflection of the rock and we took the opportunity to take reflection photos with it as backdrop.  

One interesting incident happened to Tony when he tried to get close to the rock, the wave suddenly came up and looked like the water will cover the area.  As he tried to get out of the situation, he did get his shoes wet.  But it did not stop us to continue enjoying this majestic Haystack Rock.  

They say Puffins can be observed on Haystack Rock from early spring to mid-summer, offering the most accessible viewing of Tufted Puffins in the Northwest. They were a lot of birds on top of the rock, however, it was too far away to tell if they were puffins.  As far as we could tell via viewing them through our telephoto lens, they were just normal seabirds. 

There was a puffin statue on the beach entrance area and the carved plate did mention the info regarding to the viewing of puffins on top of Haystack Rock.

Then, we drove to Ecola State Park and enjoy the scenery there.

We drove to Fort Stevens State Park to visit Clatsop Spit which is an unusually large sand spit on the Pacific coast, at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Clatsop Spit was formed by sediment brought to the coast by the Columbia River after the last ice age ended and the ocean level rose approximately 8,500 years ago. The area that is bound by the Pacific to the west and the Columbia River to the northeast and generally it is referred as the meeting point of Columbia River and Pacific Ocean.  There is an observation tower for viewing, however, it was closed to tourist at that time.  We went up the the jetty to view the meeting point of Pacific Ocean and Columbia River, however the wind was too strong and we only stayed on the jetty for a few minutes and we had to get back to the car.  

Then, we drove to the the Columbia Beach and walked along the bird viewing area for a little while.

The next attraction was the Wreck of the Peter Iredale.  Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel barque that ran ashore October 25, 1906, and is still visible, making it a popular tourist attraction as one of the most accessible shipwrecks of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

We decided to stay in the hotel and enjoyed their complementary salmon chowder as our dinner.  After dinner, we ventured out to the Astoria River Walk which is just behind our hotel.  It is the west starting point of the walk, and we walked to the west most point and watched sunset there.

When we walked back to the back of the hotel, we noticed that there were few deers there and we just stayed there and watched them for a while.  Some of the deers came very close to us and did not even bothered by our present.

Then, we walked about a mile or so to the east and back.  It was an enjoyable walk after the tasteful salmon chowder.