Cannon Beach & Ecola State Park, OR

Cannon Beach & Ecola State Park, OR
August 8, 2009

On our first full day in Oregon, we decided to drive over to the nearest beach. Cannon Beach is a quaint resort town on the Pacific Ocean. It can claim the title of "closest beach" to Portland. On the map it looks like a drive of an hour or so from Portland. The map does not tell you that once you leave metro Portland, it's a slow drive up and around many mountains. The drive is pretty enough, except for the few areas that have been clear cut.

As soon as we arrived in Cannon Beach, we found a parking spot and headed to the beach. Sounds like an easy plan, but the beach is down 12-15 feet from the parking area. Stairways or rough trails down the dunes lead to the beach. Kellisa is too heavy to carry, so we just went down the stairs with the off road jog stroller.

It was difficult pushing the stroller through the deep sand, but once we got to the wet sand, it was doable. A wave crashed and covered our feet with ocean water...freezing ocean water. The sun was hidden by clouds and there was a crisp breeze in the air. I had been hopeful that we would be able to take a dip, but it was not meant to be on this cold August afternoon.

Instead, we enjoyed walking up and down the beach with Haystack Rock dominating the view to the south. To the north sat Tillamook Head in Ecola State Park. After the beach, we walked up and down the few streets in downtown Cannon Beach. We stopped in the usual tourist stores and art galleries. A young woman in one of these businesses recommended a visit to Ecola State Park for the best views in the area.































The drive from Cannon Beach to Ecola State Park is a winding road through old growth Sitka Spruce. The road is slow, narrow and at times steep. Clark, from Lewis and Clark fame, made the same trek to view the Pacific Ocean. Once you emerge from the forest and wander out towards the head, the view of Cannon Beach is breathtaking. For movie buffs, most of The Goonies and the final scene of Point Break were filmed in Ecola State Park.

We hiked several trails through the rolling terrain to numerous viewpoints. At one point, we walked through a wedding reception that was taking place in the park. The wedding party was a unique blend of people best described as "gypsies". I thought it was odd that the parking lot was filled with old buses and campers, but it seemed to make sense now.