Tag Archives: Cannon beach

Jan26

A beach hike to kick off the New Year!

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Monday, 03-Jan-2022


Since New Years Eve fell on a Friday, I had Monday off work!

I know, right? Not a bad start to the New Year… And doubly-so, since the upcoming Friday was a day off too… so three day work week! Absolutely great start to the year!



Okay, enough bragging. I had Monday off.

I figured… Well, I was feeling a bit lazy, and didn’t quite want to deal with the adventure of icy / snowy roads and tire chains. So Mt. Hood was out. And if going East, into the mountains, wasn’t really feeling like a good option… why not a return visit to the beach, hmm?




Well, it turns out that one reason I could cite is the tides – a reason that I learned when I looked down from the staircase at Cannon Beach, straight into the foaming Pacific Ocean. Turns out, I’d timed it just right so that I’d arrived exactly at high tide… strangely, not something that I think I’ve ever seen at Cannon before.

I’m an intrepid adventurer though! No “high tide”, or “lack of beach”, silliness is going to stop me! I forged my way around, hiking over dunes and through the beach grass, making my way down the beach and into a singularly glorious landscape or churning waves and dispersed sunlight.


I walked for ages – I didn’t really track how far, or how long, I was wandering. I stopped in a nice copse of trees for lunch, and rested when I felt tired. I’d brought snacks, water, and warm layers… And since I’d started at high tide, I knew there wasn’t a risk of getting trapped anywhere since the only direction the surf was going was away from me.

It was lovely. Relaxing, quiet, and exactly as calm as I was hoping for on my last day before re-starting the trudge of work.


On my walk, I even found a few ocean-based treasures!

Jaw-dropping views not included, I found:
– A really cute little beach toy, washed up on shore
– A child’s bike helmet, now home to a colony of brightly colored mussels
– A huge hunk of whale blubber!


Yeah, you read that last one right. Whale blubber! It wobbled!

A few days previous, a whale carcass had washed up ashore a few miles down the coast… I hadn’t really thought about it, but that’s the best explanation I could think up for what I found. It’s big, wobbly, and tons of seagulls were feasting on it…




As the sun dipped low, I made my way back to the car and toward the drive home. Beautiful snow-covered trees kept watch as a drove, and a glorious dinner of artichoke, steak, and tortellini awaited me back home…


Jan24

2021 – A retrospective

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2021. The whole thing.

I started this post out by just creating a list of all the adventures that I went on in 2021. But… I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t particularly interesting – While it was informative, it was pretty dry, and the list didn’t really capture the feeling of the year.

Instead, I think I’ll just post my favorite pictures, along with a quick summary of the sort of the major adventures of the year:

  • The winter brought lots of backpacking and snow hiking – It’s still strange to me how much I’ve grown to know Oregon in the last year and a half… or, more accurately, how little of Oregon I really met in the preceding four years.
  • I visited friends in Sacramento in the spring; had amazing catch-up time, and saw some stunning views of Lake Tahoe
  • In the late spring, I visited one of the most photographed lakes in the Pacific North West – Colchuck Lake! I even summitted Asgard’s Pass with a friend… though the blood-price for that trip was steep. I injured my knee again, which put me out of hiking condition for nearly two months afterward.
  • The summer saw the death of my Grandmother, a blow to the entire family that we’ll never truly move on from. I was brought unexpectedly face-to-face with just how much of my personality came from her. Her passing brought an unexpected gift, though, in the form of nearly two weeks visiting family and friends back in New England.
  • The early fall brought my first dedicated rock climbing trip in quite some time – along with summitting what is probably the most iconic climbing route I’ve ever done. Devil’s Tower, in the bag!
  • The late fall brought friendship and comradery in amounts I haven’t seen in years. A backpacking trip with friends, and a huge event in my friend group – My friend Dillon’s bachelor party, and my role as best man in his wedding!
  • The winter is still coming in to Oregon, but the end of 2021 brought the return of beautifully snowy conditions up on Mt. Hood, and a reminder of just how glorious the Oregon Coast really can be…


**As always, if anyone would like a copy of any of these photos, please let me know. I have many of them already printed, but can always re-print anything that anyone would like.

Jan11

A beach in winter

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Tuesday, 28-Dec-2021


My friend Mike came to visit!

It’s been a while since I’ve seen him – Back over spring break, if I’m remembering correctly, and I was super psyched to hear that he’d have some free time over Christmas to come up to Oregon and visit. I came up with tons of plans – keeping in mind that weather would be a pretty major contributing factor to what trouble we got into.

Without giving a full blow-by-blow of the adventure, I’ll fill you in on a snapshot of the conditions we found ourselves in: The world was burning down (or rampantly infected, more accurately) with the Omicron variant of COVID. Mt. Hood was getting belted with a full-power winter snowstorm. The roads between Mike and I were similarly under a snowy assault. And, to top it all off, both of us were pretty well burned out from the rest of the adventures of the year.

So what do you do when the whole world seems a little bit crazy?

Go to the beach! Duh.




“But Ben! Those are pictures of snow! That’s not the beach!”

“Right you are, other Ben! For you see… Mt. Hood and Mt. Shasta weren’t the only places getting pummeled with persistent precipitation! The roads to the beach were also under snow!”

But hey. We’re two New England boys, in Mike’s car with brand new snow tires. We got to the beach without any difficulty or fuss.



Once at the beach, we grabbed some lunch at a local Brewery before walking said lunch off exploring the coastline.

Have I mentioned that Oregon is beautiful?

Let me reiterate that fact:

Oregon.
Is.
Beautiful.

The walk was perfect – for me, at least, but I’m pretty confident that it was exactly what both of us needed. Low-Key, relaxed conversation. With a gorgeous background.



And no – I’m not going to transcribe everything we talked about. Because that would be crazy. And, while I’m absolutely crazy, I’m thankfully not that kind of crazy.

Though… Maybe someday we’ll start a podcast or something. Pretty sure our crazy would sell pretty well. Maybe.

For now – Enjoy a few interesting signs that we saw before the final installment on the day’s adventure!




**CONTENT WARNING**

***BUG AHEAD***

****WE WENT TO RED LOBSTER ON THE DRIVE BACK****

(I didn’t even know we had Red Lobster, to be honest. Many thanks to Mike for introducing me to Maine Lobsters in Oregon!)