Travel Day to Harris Beach in Brookings
Today was another short hop on Highway 101 to Brookings and our last stop along the Oregon Coast. The first part of the drive was inland and relatively straight, so that part was an easy drive. From Gold Beach, we hugged the coast the remaining 30 miles and enjoyed the scenery. Some of the most gorgeous coastline in America is between Meyers Beach and Brookings.
Sunset & Backpackers
We are camping at Harris Beach State Park, which is on a ridge above the beach with scattered sea stacks and Goat Island just offshore. The scenery is spectacular even if you never leave the park. What I had forgotten about the campground was how narrow the roads are. We drove through the campground to find our campsite, but quickly realized that we would have to unhook the Explorer in a parking lot somewhere before making any attempt at getting into our site. We have another nice campsite, although we had to do some serious leveling when we got set up. The downside to Loop D is that it's just below the highway, and we gets lots of road noise during the day.
Arch Rock
As soon as we got set up, we gathered our camera gear and drove to one of our favorite areas. Arch Rock is a point that separates two coves. The views from both the south and the north sides of the point are spectacular. And at the tip of the point is Arch Rock, which is a rounded sea stack just offshore with a large arch. It gets first light when the sun clears the mountains in the east and is the nesting place for cormorants and their chicks. Tonight, we did most of our photographing on the south side of the point. The lighting was good, and we had interesting clouds above the sea stacks. As sunset neared, we moved to the point to shoot Arch Rock as the sun lit the opening. The arch, the high clouds, and the gold layer between made my best sunset shot of the trip.
While we were waiting for the sunset, we talked to two groups of backpackers who had gathered on the point to eat dinner and enjoy the sunset. They had been hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, but fire danger forced them to change their plans. They had joined forces and decided to hike the Oregon Coast Trail instead. They were an interesting group. I hope the rest of their trip went well.
Previous Day
Return to Trip Page