Waterfalls and Sea Stacks

Thursday morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. One nice amenity in this hotel is their rooftop garden. Had we gotten in before sunset last night, it would have been a great spot to watch the sun go down. But we missed the sunset, so before checking out, we headed up there and got some nice pictures of Astoria and the river from the roof. After that, we checked out and moved our car to a public parking lot and explored Astoria a bit by foot. First, we walked down to the river and took a stroll along the riverwalk. We headed down as far as the Columbia River Maritime Museum before heading back. Sandy wanted to get some shopping in, so we stopped at a few of the antique stores and picked up a small Egyptian plaque to hang on the wall when we got home. Might as well take advantage of Oregon's sales tax-free shopping. A cruise ship was in port, so everything was very busy in Astoria. We also walked by the Flavel House Museum and got some pictures from the outside, although we didn’t have time to go in, as well as the adjacent court house. When Sandy was done shopping, we stopped by a Safeway grocery store to get some sandwiches for lunch and fill up gas in the car when we heard some very loud barking. But it wasn’t someone’s dog, it was sea lions! We headed over to the Port of Astoria parking lot and went to the shore to see the sea lions lying out on a dock. There was one dock that we could walk out on to get a little closer, but unfortunately, we were still a good distance away. Although we couldn’t see them well, we could certainly hear them. I used a 200-mm lens to get some decent shots of them and then we got ready to leave Astoria. After all the waterfall madness yesterday in the Columbia River Gorge, I felt compelled to check online if there were any waterfalls near Astoria. And sure enough, I found directions to Youngs River Falls, conveniently located between Astoria and Cannon Beach. From Astoria, we took Business 101 south across the bridge over Youngs River and then turned left onto Youngs River Road. After about 7.5 miles, we turned onto Youngs River Falls Road, immediately after a rock quarry, and parked at the end of this road. We hiked down to the falls, which are a very pretty 50-foot drop over a big rock wall.

While we were taking pictures, we heard some splashing around in the water just downstream of the falls. It was pretty big and I thought maybe it was a beaver or otter, but it turned out to be salmon spawning.

That was really exciting; I had never seen them before. So we climbed out on the rocks into the very shallow water and watched in awe as these huge fish navigated upstream in such shallow water. Looking around, we saw a couple dead salmon and some eggs in the water, which looked like small orange balls.

A local man we were talking to told us that when he was a kid, he would come out here and hunt for salmon with a pitchfork. After watching the salmon for a while, we headed back to the car and made our way to Cannon Beach to see Haystack Rock. We parked at Tolovana Beach State Recreation Area, which provides free access to the beach and is only a mile or so from Haystack Rock. After changing into shorts and flip-flops and applying sunscreen, we started walking down the beach towards the rock.

The walk was close to a mile, but Haystack Rock is so big, it seems a lot closer than it is. We stopped about halfway down the beach to eat lunch and then continued on.

We were very lucky that the tide was going out when we were there. The Pacific water is very cold and we never got more than calf-deep. But since the tide was going out, we were able to get all the way up to the rock, as far as we were allowed to go.

I was hoping to see some puffins, but a ranger told me that they had migrated and wouldn’t be back until the spring.

We did see some cormorants and many gulls nesting along the high walls of the sea stack.

But the most exciting things here were the colorful ochre starfish and giant green anemones that live in the tidal pools around Haystack Rock.

These were some of the most beautiful starfish I have ever seen.

They are huge and beautiful in shades of purple, orange, and red.

We also saw several kelp crabs, hermit crabs, and some small fish.

We spent quite a bit of time exploring through all the tidal pools and taking lots of pictures. After a while, however, my feet were starting to get numb from the frigid water, so we hiked back to the parking lot. It was time to head to our last destination – Portland. It should have been about a 2-hour drive taking US-26 east towards the city and most of the drive was pleasant. But when we actually got to the city limits, the traffic was terrible. It took us over an hour just to get across Portland to our hotel – Staybridge Suites by the airport. We finally got there just after sunset and were ready to be done driving. We parked the car, checked into the hotel, and walked across the street to a little Chinese place. After dinner, Sandy took a bath and I took advantage of the hot tub before heading to bed.