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A few photos of Haystack Rock, at Pacific City on the Oregon Coast. While we were out there a couple of weekends ago, it was gently suggested to me that I might be taking a few too many photos of the thing. But, well, if you're at the beach in Pacific City, you can basically either take photos of the ocean with the rock, or the ocean without the rock, and without it the photos could be from anywhere, really.
This is basically as close as you can get to the rock, since all offshore rocks on the coast are part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, nearly all are federally designated wilderness, and people are forbidden to set foot there. Boats have to stay 500 feet away, aircraft have to stay above 2000 feet elevation in the area. All of this is great, of course, since people and threatened seabirds tend not to mix all that well.
Besides, the rock looks dangerous. Since I'm not a big fan of danger, I wouldn't climb on the thing even if it was legal.
If you want to see the rock from the top or the other side, there are a couple of photos here
Just south of town is the Nestucca Bay wildlife refuge, a chunk of protected estuary that protects a variety of migratory geese. You can't go there either right now, although they're planning to add visitor facilities sooner or later.
I mention this because an article in Pacific City's local paper indicated the Nestucca Bay sanctuary was created to divert the migrating geese from the rock. Seems they used to make foraging raids on the rock under cover of night, which I expect was a rather strange sight.
I was momentarily excited to learn Haystack Rock has puffins. Then I realized it was the other Haystack Rock, up in Cannon Beach. It's better known, but smaller.
When the light's right you can see birds swirling around the rock, but they're just unidentifiable specks in the distance. But that's ok, if they aren't seagulls, and aren't puffins, I wouldn't be able to identify them anyway.
Here's a photo with a couple of surfers. Ok, would-be surfers. They wandered around in and near the water for hours on end, but I never saw anyone surfing for real.
1 comment :
I enjoy your photos-it's been years since I've gone to Haystack rock. I'm also thrilled that you linked to me (and caught that mention I made of the SCO-Linux case-very cool indeed).
Would you mind playing a short round of tag?
Someone tagged me with a question, and now I'd like to tag you (I'd do this in email but you don't seem to have an email contact here, so I'm invading your comment space.
I'm also mad curious to see how you'd answer this one.
Here's the rundown:
1. Answer the Following Question:
Why on Earth do you blog?
2. Link back to the person who tagged you (me) from your post. The post generating this fun is http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2007/05/
bloggage-why-on-earth-do-i-blog.html
While there, grab the "Bloggy Tag" graphic from my blog so you can use it here.
3. Tag five other people that you'd like to see answer the question.
4. Watch them answer the question (to me this is the best part).
PS: just link back to me, don't say who it is; that way, people who follow the chain back discover people they didn't know they'd find.
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