Oregon Dunes and Lighthouses!

We are staying in Bandon, on the southern Oregon coast, for a few days, after moving south from Waldport and our visit with David's family in the Willamette Valley.  One of the reasons for this stop was to visit the Oregon Dunes and identify spots to camp and explore more deeply on a future trip to the Pacific Northwest.  Unfortunately, we had only today to explore the dunes area.  This was further constricted by a sudden message from our Jeep to change its oil.  So... after the oil change, we visited the Oregon Dunes Visitor Center in Reedsport, Oregon to get an overview of this remarkable environment.

We learned that the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area stretches about 40 miles from the town of Florence to just north of the town of North Bend (north of Coos Bay, Oregon). It is part of Siuslaw National Forest and is administered by the U.S. Forest Service.  The Oregon Dunes are the largest expanse of coastal sand dunes in North America and one of the largest expanses of temperate coastal sand dunes in the world.  Some dunes tower 500 feet above sea level.

Our first visit to the dune system was in Umpqua Lighthouse State Park.  We drove a few miles out from Highway 101 and down the beach to reach an area where the public can easily access the dunes.

This might not be the highest dune, but it is representative of the dune system along the coast.  In this photo, taken from the barrier dunes above the Pacific Ocean beach, a flat bed of sand leads eastward toward a high ridge of sand, much of which is forested.  U.S. Highway 101 lies behind the ridge:

We turned toward the ocean and climbed further up the barrier dunes, which, all along the coast, are capped in salt grasses rising taller than we are:

Beyond the grass-capped dunes lay a Pacific Ocean of brilliant blue, breathing in and out below an azure sky:

To get an idea how all of these features relates to each other, take a look at
this 360-degree view of the dunes and beach at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park.

Having explored the dunes, we returned to the Umpqua River Lighthouse itself.  It is the successor to an original lighthouse built in 1857 on the north spit of the Umpqua River to help guide boats across the river bar.  The original lighthouse was the first coastal lighthouse in Oregon.

This lighthouse replaced the original, which fell into the river due to sand erosion in 1861.  This newer light was first lit in 1894. 

The lighthouse commands the coast and the entrance to the Umpqua River.  The photo below looks out from the lighthouse toward "The Triangle," which is a structure of two jetties or spits that protect the mouth of the Umpqua River and the harbor near its mouth:

There are nine lighthouses along the Oregon Coast, which are generally owned or administered by the State of Oregon.  Four, including the Umpqua River Lighthouse, were within range of us in Bandon.  One we will visit tomorrow and we'll save that for our next blog entry.  Another, Cape Arago Lighthouse, is not accessible directly by the public because it is on tribal lands.  The fourth, however, is accessible, and we drove further down the coast to the Coquille River Lighthouse, near Bandon.

It sits within Bullards Beach State Park.  Driving in, we passed a beautiful RV campground that we noted as a possible stop on a future trip.  Three miles later, we reached a point on the Coquille River and found the lighthouse.  In the lowering afternoon sun, and with the salt grass gracing the dunes around it, it struck a special, Newfoundland-like note for us, bringing us back to all the lighthouses we enjoyed on our trip to the Canadian Maritimes in 2018:

West of the lighthouse, a jetty stretches out into the Pacific Ocean.  While it is possible to walk the length of the jetty, we didn't have the time to explore its reach.

We also had no time to hike the miles of open beach stretching north from the lighthouse and jetty.  We sorely wanted to get out and explore.

But, sadly, it was already 5:00 pm and we needed to get home with our groceries and give our loyal cat, Baxter, his evening walk before the sun set.  So we noted this beautiful spot and promised ourselves we would hike this area again on a future visit.

While we have to move on to other adventures, we'll leave you with this Fun Fact:  Frank Herbert's science-fiction novel, "Dune," was partly inspired by Herbert's research and fascination with the Oregon Dunes!  Now, go back and read that series of novels and tell us if there are any locations on Arrakis that were based on the coastal dunes of southern Oregon.