Day 2: Scouting the South Oregon Coast, Part II

As mentioned in the previous post, Day 2’s sunrise was to be spent on South Beach, at the far southern edge of the town of Gold Beach–located only five minutes or so from where I was staying, which made it quite convenient given that sunrise was at roughly 6 AM.  I arrived on site a bit before 5:30, parked at the large highway pullout and made my way down to the beach.

South Beach Moonset, Curry County, Oregon

South Beach doesn’t have a lot of rocks or seastacks offshore, but there is one prominent offshore rock.  The beach is long and broad, bisected by Hunter’s Creek, and inhabited by some strands of driftwood with sections strewn with small beach stones.  As the light came up, I saw that there weren’t a lot of clouds in the sky, but there was just enough marine layer activity to produce some cloud-like apparitions to the southeast.  I positioned myself to take advantage of both of these features, as the rising sun brought the colors in the sky to the fore.

South Beach at Dawn, Curry County, Oregon

The flat areas of sand held the moisture left by the breaking waves for a long time, which provided extensive areas of reflected sky.

South Beach at Dawn, Curry County, Oregon

In a happy coincidence, moonset was correlated with sunrise during most of my week shooting on the Oregon coast.  I made use of this circumstance frequently during my morning shoots, including this initial instance.  The nearly complete lack of cloud cover produced a substantial earthshadow effect to the west prior to the sun’s appearance behind the hills to the east.

South Beach Moonset & Earthshadow, Curry County, Oregon

When sunrise light began to fade, I moved on, traveling the coast highway to the south.  I briefly stopped along Cape View Loop, a rarely used road that runs above and to the east of US 101 that provides some aerial views of Myers Beach.

Myers Beach and Cape Sebastian from Cape View Loop, Oregon

The views ran nearly 180 degrees, from Cape Sebastian to the north to Pistol River and Crook Point to the south.

Myers Beach and Crook Point from Cape View Loop, Oregon

I spent some time up on Cape View Loop playing around with a long lens and some neutral density filters, focusing on the breaking waves to the south, varying the exposure time to see what kinds of effects could be produced.

Off Shore Rocks from Cape View Loop, Oregon

Off Shore Rocks from Cape View Loop black & white, Oregon

Crook Point from Cape View Loop, Oregon

By the time I finished shooting at this location it was approaching 8 AM.  It was shaping up as another clear, exceptionally windy day and I decided to proceed into full-blown scouting mode.  I continued the journey south, and wandered around the mouth of the Pistol River, where it feeds directly into the Pacific, and then to Samuel H. Boardman State Park, where I spent most of the rest of the morning and afternoon scouting a broad variety of viewpoints, trails and beaches.  I made my way down the short but steep trail to Miner Creek (a.k.a. Secret) Beach and determined immediately that I would have to return to the spot–with plans to do so at sunset–and also took the much longer jaunt to China Creek Beach, several miles south of Secret Beach.  I also spent time investigating Whaleshead and Lone Ranch Beaches, and made my way around the viewpoints at Thunder Rock Cove, Natural Bridges, Arch Rock, Whaleshead Viewpoint, North Island Viewpoint, Spruce Creek Viewpoint, Indian Sands, Cape Ferrelo and others.

Did I mention that the wind was ferocious?  It–literally–nearly blew me over on the trail to North Island Viewpont, forcing me to turn around and head back.  At Thunder Bay Cove, I was loathe to get too close to the cliff’s edge to investigate a possible perspective–without my camera gear, mind you–due to concern over gusts.

I also spent a fair amount of time hiking different segments of the coast trail that connects many of the above locations.  I found a few new vistas worthy of mining but mainly turned my attention to tighter, more intimate scenes to photograph under the appropriate conditions (i.e. less wind and even light).

In all, essentially no photography took place during these many hours, but it was time very well spent.  I had never visited any of these spots south of Cape View Loop and this time spent simply investigating granted me the opportunity to make the most of the rest of my time later in the week.  Remember, all of this scouting was conducted under cloudless skies (read: harsh light) and high winds, so it wasn’t as though a lot of great shooting opportunities went by the wayside.

The lone exception to this no-photo policy was Whaleshead Viewpoint where I hauled my equipment out to a spot along the trail to obtain some images of waves.  (Note the effect of the aforementioned strong winds.)

Wind & Surf black & white, Whaleshead Viewpoint, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

About an hour before sunset I made my way back to Secret Beach.  The trail to the beach is short–perhaps 1/4 mile–but quite steep.  At the bottom, you find yourself about 15 feet above the sand, but you can climb onto a tall stack and then make your way down the rock face to the beach itself–it’s not as difficult as it sounds.  I climbed down to the beach–for the second time that day (remember, it had been my first scouting stop of the morning).

Secret Beach at Sunset, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

Miner Creek Beach (sometimes referred to as Secret Beach–I’m using the terms interchangeably) is a very, very pretty location, with marvelous seastacks, several of which are topped by conifers.  Two creeks–one of which contains a significant waterfall–empty onto the beach and into the ocean.  The only negative to the location is the shallowness of the beach…that and the footprints in the sand which aren’t routinely washed away, even at high tide, without a significant ocean surge.  I also noted that the best perspectives–at least in my opinion–were facing to the south and southwest, which meant that the very best sunset colors would be absent, at least at this time of year.

Secret Beach at Sunset, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

While the light was wonderful, the sky conditions were less than ideal:  no clouds at all.  There was a nice orange gradient along the western horizon, but the conditions were hardly spectacular.

Secret Beach at Sunset, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

I made my way back up the trail in the dark; I had a headlamp and a flashlight with me, and since it was pitch dark inside the densely wooded area, they were welcome.  Even though conditions hadn’t been ideal at either sunrise or sunset, I was reasonably pleased with the day’s activities.  I certainly anticipated a return to Secret Beach later in the week.

While I had scouted the vast majority of locations I’d wanted to investigate to the south, I still had spots to the north of Gold Beach that I wanted to explore–I would cover most of that territory the next day…

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