Cannon Beach

For our second day while staying in Gearhart we picked Cannon Beach as our hike. Located just 10 miles south of Gearhart on the other side of Tillamook Head we planned on starting at the city information center on 2nd St. and hiking south along the beach to a waterfall at Hug Point. The round trip would be just under 10.5 miles and allow us to be back to our hotel before the Seahawks played their first regular season game. (We might have been better off hiking based on the way their offense wound up playing.)

The clouds from the previous day were still breaking up as we left our room creating a nice sunrise over Saddle Mountain.

We drove south on Highway 101 to Cannon Beach, parked, and walked three blocks to the beach.

The morning coastal fog was rolling in somewhat obscuring the view of Tillamook Head to the north.

To the south Haystack Rock fared a little better although some of the smaller rocks around it were in the fog.

We turned south on the beach heading for Haystack Rock which was about a mile away. The rock began catching some early morning sunlight as we passed.

We continued on passing the Tolovana Beach Wayside on the way to Silver Point two miles beyond Haystack Rock.

It was fairly foggy at Silver Point where we found several large rocks just offshore, including the aptly named Jockey Cap.

Jockey Cap

A little over a half mile after passing Silver Point we arrived at Humbug Point where we passed another well named rock, Lion Rock.

It was another mile to Hug Point which was also dealing with the morning fog.

Hug Point was part of a wagon route where settlers had to wait for low tide to be able to pass by. A roadbed was blasted in the headland around 1920 which was still obvious as we approached.

The other reason we had chosen this hike for the day is that low tide was around 9:20am which we figured was a little later than when we would be arriving. It was a little after 8:30 when we did reach the point and we could have easily stayed dry by crossing over on the roadbed but when we approached it we noticed a lot of marine life on the rocks.

Instead of trying to avoid them we decided to take off our shoes and socks and wade around Hug Point. The water was about calf deep at its deepest so getting through was easy enough. One the other side we found more anemones and other marine creatures clinging to the rocks.

Seagulls seemed to be treating it as a buffet.

After passing a small cove we spotted the small waterfall on Fall Creek. It wasn’t exactly the best time of year to be visiting the falls but the water was still flowing.

The falls can be accessed from the Hug Point Wayside which avoids the need to navigate around Hug Point. We’ll likely stop there some other time when the flow over the falls is greater.

We turned around here and headed back. After another wade around Hug Point we pulled out our Therm-A-Rest Z Seats and took a seat while our feet dried.

The clouds continued to break up as the morning progressed.

We finished our 10.4 mile hike just before 11am and headed back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon of football. By the time the sun was setting most of the clouds had disappeared teasing a little more blue sky for our Monday Hikes.

Happy Trails!

Flickr: Cannon Beach