These tombolos are formed by waves pushing in material around both sides of a rocky impediment to form a low ridge. Sand causeways, termed tombolos by geomorphologists, connect the rocks to the beach, but the rocks are out of bounds as part of the wilderness. To the right of the restrooms here, there’s a viewing platform that gives you a view to the Giant’s Causeway and up the beach, with Yaquina Head visible in the distance. Walk 250 yards south along the highway to the entrance for Seal Rock State Park, and turn into the parking area at the Seal Rock Trailhead. Some rickety wooden steps will take you up to a driveway, where you go left to Highway 101. You’ll also pass some sandstone formations on the beach.Ībout 370 yards before the end of the beach, find a trail leading up a gully thicketed with spruce and shore pine. These are part of a basalt sill that runs more or less parallel to the shore and, like all of Oregon’s offshore islands, they are protected by the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, also a federally-designated wilderness. The largest stack here is called Castle Rock. A line of rocks sometimes called the Giant’s Causeway appears offshore, part of the Seal Rocks archipelago. Pass a public access point to the beach: before Highway 101 the beach (at low tide) was the main thoroughfare, and this was where vehicles would head inland to circumvent the Seal Rock headland. The beach becomes a sandy expanse, but often the high tide will lap against the base of the bluff, so pick the two or three hours you need for this hike around the lowest tide. Its about two miles before you reach the Seal Rock area. One of the most prolific of these was Douglas Emlong, who found the remains of megafuana such as a desmostylian (a hippopotamus-like creature) an ancient sea-lion that resembled its bear-like ancestors and a whale that possessed both teeth and baleen. This area has been a trove for fossil hunters. Rounded concretions of harder rock, really agglutinations of smaller particles that formed around a shell, bone, or chunk of iron, protrude in symmetrical rows (Note that these formations will mostly be covered in sand in the summer). The wavecut platform here is highly eroded sandstone of the Yaquina Formation, laid down during the Oligocene epoch, about 30 million years ago. Walk left under sandstone bluffs capped by tortured spruces and clifftop homes. To the right, a small spit reaches to the mouth of Beaver Creek. A sturdy wooden bridge arches over Beaver Creek, and the path soon emerges onto Ona Beach. Some of this route maybe be flooded in winter/spring, in which case you can detour around the south side of the restrooms. Take the paved trail that leads out towards the beach. Ona Beach is part of the recently retitled (2013) Brian Booth State Park, named after the first Chair of the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Commission. This last section of the hike, which begins at the Seal Rock Trailhead and ends at Smith Point is a very worthy short excursion in and of itself. At low tide, a marvelous contorted sandstone platform, where Hill Creek cascades through tide pools and mussel beds to the sea, becomes exposed. Down on the beaches, you can scan the rocks for harbor seals and sea lions. Two miles of sandy beach from the trailhead, cut up to Highway 101 to take in the views of the spectacular basalt formations at the Seal Rock State Recreation Site. From the mouth of Beaver Creek, walk south to inspect fossil-rich wavecut platforms composed of Yaquina formation sandstone. This interesting beach walk takes in some of the most scenic marvels of the central Oregon coast.
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