We have completed this trip’s visits to national parks. We are heading toward Portland for our flight home. We still have a couple of stops along the way. Our trip begins in the fog again today.
Fortunately, the fog did not last long. Once we got near the Oregon coast, the skies had cleared. It is a beautiful day for a drive to Thor’s Well.
The Oregon coast is rocky just like the Northern California coast. There do seem to be a few more walkable beaches in Oregon though.
It is amazing to be on the coastline one minute and then be up in the mountains a few minutes later. It appears that there are some places in Oregon where the mountains go right down to the ocean after all.
We finally arrived at Thor’s Well. This was the first inlet that we saw here. The waves hint at the active surf at this location.
This series of photos was taken over about ten seconds. It tries to show the waves crashing against the rocks.
Thor’s Well is a hole drilled into the rocky beach by the strong waves crashing into it. Here you can see the ocean water roiling in the well as the surf pushed into it through the underwater hole in the rocks.
Occasionally, the surf hits hard enough to force a spray to arise from the well. Our best pictures of the spray were lost in a file transfer accident. From now on we will copy and delete files rather than move them.
It takes patience and some luck to catch the waves as they break on the shore. The rough, wet rocks, the sea spray, and the noise of the surf add to the challenge.
In this series of pictures, you can see the size of the waves and the large spray generated when they meet the rocky coast.
Here is another example of some large waves coming in. We enjoyed watching a group of college students who were trying to brave the waves. They would sit at the edge of the rocks until a wave like this came in. Each one of them thought they would be the one to stare down the waves like a statue. None of them succeeded. We did, however, see several other people get totally soaked.
This sequence at Thor’s Well shows the rise and fall of the spray and the crash against the other side of the well.
There was a second inlet to the right of the one we saw first. The waves had created a cave under the inner part of the inlet. It sounded like a thunderclap when a strong wave made its way all the way to the inner part of the inlet.
We were not as daring as the college students. We also seemed to be attempting this photo at a low point in the wave cycle. Let’s just say this was not the first time we tried this shot to get a crashing wave.
Thor’s Well was a couple of hours out of our way on our drive to Portland, but it was well worth the trip. We had planned to drive up the coast the rest of the way to Portland. When we planned the trip, Google said it would take an extra 30 minutes to follow the coastline.
The Labor Day weekend crowds changed that time significantly. We switched to the direct route to Portland to save about three hours of very slow driving.