cannon
beach
COASTAL OREGON
It was “the grandest and most pleasing pros-
pect which my eyes ever surveyed,” said the
19th-century explorer William Clark of look-
ing down at Cannon Beach. Two hundred
years later, the view is little changed and
can still be enjoyed from a lookout dubbed
Clark’s Point of View, accessed from one of
the area’s many trails. Broad swaths of sandy
beach stretch for nine miles (14.5 km) along
this tract of Oregon coastline, backed by a
mixture of gentle foreshore, conifer forest,
and the peaks of the Coast Range.DON’T MISS
Haystack Rock is a 235-foot (72 m) ofshore basalt
monolith, the third largest such monolith in the
world. A protected marine refuge, it supports rich
and diverse intertidal habitats and provides a home
for thousands of nesting seabirds.Haystack Rock and the Needles stand silhouetted
against the sunset on Oregon’s Cannon Beach.67 RIVERS & SHORES