Surprising to Bizarre Oregon Coast Moments Caught in Time

Published 07/08/22 at 5:35 AM PST
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Oregon Coast) – It's known as the one of the most dynamic environments in the world, where everything changes constantly. Oregon's coastline can yield some truly startling finds – if you're lucky to be there at the right time. Indeed, it's one of the few places on the planet that has sneaker waves: that's something a lot of beachgoers from others parts of the U.S. and elsewhere have not even heard of. No two days will resemble the other out here, especially if you're looking down.

If you're truly lucky, you'll have your camera in your hand when this occurs. Then again, it's amazing how many wild and wacky sights the average visitor doesn't pick up on. Knowledge really is power: and if you the science of what you're seeing, then you can actually understand its significance.

The Really Weird Pink Rainbow. It turns out there's something like ten minutes more of daylight on the coast than inland. Thanks to the coastal mountains and Pacific City getting in the way a little and the pure horizon view the beaches have, the sun actually goes down just a tad later along the Oregon coast than in places like Portland, Eugene or Bend. The mountains between inland and the coast block the sundown a little. Then once you're on the beaches, you have a clear, unobstructed view of the sun going down.

Its blues and greens were largely cut out by the fierce cast of the reds from behind, but it was still visible: a strange and surreal reminder of how dynamic and unique the coastal environment is.

A Lighthouse Enclosed In A Bubble. Sometimes the true startlers on the Oregon coast are found in history. This, and the reflective qualities of sand, are why you really need to watch the sunburn factor on nice days like this. Together, Cape Mears near Oceanside and the ocean and the sand shoot back a lot of the sun's rays and you can burn much faster.

This warmer beach dynamic can happen in winter, too. It takes the right conditions of blue sky and no wind. When it does occur, however, it's spectacular to feel yourself in a balmy place right next to a sometimes raging ocean, when a few hundred feet away it can be quite chilly.

Strangely Shaped Sunset Near Manzanita. Take your mind back to about 15 million years ago: a massive river of lava erupts in what is now Idaho, so big it covers miles at a time as it marches along around 4 mph. It sears entire forests into ashes and fumes. One extraordinary spring, while cruising past the overlooks above Manzanita, thick layers of clouds broke open in just the right way to allow shafts. It builds gigantic damns of molten rock that are perhaps miles long, sometime bulging up to 20 feet high. It marches it way to what was then the ocean – some 20 miles farther east than it is now.

Double Rainbow Amid Storm Ravaged Beach. In 2009, Seaside Aquarium’s Tiffany Boothe explored a winter beach after a gnarly storm and found a host of wonders. The whole is often hundreds of miles long. When it reaches the softer sediments of the ocean, sometimes it dives downward and then re-erupts elsewhere.

When all that cools, it’s called basalt. The major headlands we see were once giant crevices or canyons, which all that lava filled up. Over millions of years, the exterior soil and rock eroded away, leaving the headlands you see on the Oregon coast.

Hence a few extra minutes of sunlight.