Bend, OR

The Natural Outstanding Area is part of the Yaquina Head lighthouse, not to be confused with the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. The construction of Yaquina Head ultimately shut down Yaquina Bays lighthouse and the owners of the Yaquina Bay then moved back to Cape Cod. Yaquina Head’s lighthouse sits a mile out to see on a rugged headland and is purported to be the tallest lighthouse in Oregon.

When I made my trip to the central coast, visiting this lighthouse was not on my agenda but for some reason I went anyway and I am glad I did. I never did get to tour the lighthouse on the inside but I did walk around and then I wandered down to the Natural Outstanding Area viewpoint. The viewpoint gives an excellent view of the surroundings but what intrigued me was the beach itself.<This is not your typical beach as you would be lucky to find much sand. The beach is literally covered in smooth, oval shaped rocks, of which all are loose and makes for tougher walking, especially if you are trying to move with any speed as I ended up doing. The other oddity about this beach is the mussel beds. Some beds only have 3-5 mussels but others had hundreds of mussels and the beach was covered in these as well. So walking this beach one must always pay attention to where they step. Stepping on mussels will kill them.

In the photo of the “triangle” shaped rock you will see a smaller rock off to the right. It is that rock in which I sat upon to get pictures that I never got. As I was waiting for the tides to hit the rock so that I may get my desired picture, I never realized that the tide was coming in. I happened to glance down and realized that there was water around the base of the rock which quickly stopped any further thought of staying. I watched the tide recede and when I realized it wasn’t receding as far as I wanted I had to jump. I landed in about 3’ of water and ran right on top of those slippery oval rocks. What normally may have taken me 30 seconds felt like 90 by time I get out of my potential disaster area.

I’m a unique person, I like unique things and places and if you are one into the unique side of things this beach will do it for you. Because of my run in with the incoming tide I was unable to explore the man made tide pools so if you do get down there before I get back, shoot me an email and tell me about them. I do plan on gong back as I want to explore the nesting areas that are at eye level; I hope seagulls aren’t mean and the tide pools, as well as walk farther down the beach. Other than that, remember to read your tide table correctly as that is where my mistake laid.

This area in 3 miles North of Newport and is easy to find.