I grew up in the Mojave Desert of Southern California – just over the San Gabriel Mountains from Los Angeles. We could get to Ventura Beach in about an hour and a half. We could play on the sand, walk along the beach, body surf. It was fantastic. Once my friends and I got our drivers’ licenses we’d make frequent trips during the summers and would even camp out on the beach.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, and I moved to Oregon. One thing I soon noticed is that people call it “The Coast” rather than “The Beach”. That’s because the water is so dang cold! People – mostly kids – may spend a little time in the water, but it is far too chilly to do any serious water play unless you have a wet/dry suit.
Nevertheless, if you read most of my posts about the Oregon Coast, you’d think it is a sunny playground (even in February). And, on a nice day, the Coast is beautiful. But not always.
Our most frequent destination is Canon Beach – or Cannon Beach if I spell it correctly. It is about an hour and a half from home and features a long beach for walking. The most distinctive feature is Haystack Rock. When the tide is low you can visit the tide pools.
Like most of the geologic features on the Oregon Coast it was formed by lava flows 15 to 16 million years ago. You can see – on a clear day – that the rock is an extension of a ridge that comes out of the Coast Range. A big chunk of the earth has washed away in the past 15 or so million years but pieces of the rock remain.
That was the feature I was hoping to show in this post. After parking at the Tolovana wayside, we headed down to the beach and saw this.
We walked a couple of miles north through a fog bank and could see Haystack Rock when we got close. It was interesting watching it appear then disappear.
As a kid my family went to Morro Bay on the central California coast. It features a similar geologic feature – Morro Rock – also created by lava flows.
Well, that’s a lot of words for one picture. For more pictures of the Oregon Coast check out the links listed above.
