Hug Point

Get your tide book first, then go to Hug Point at low tide so you won't be trapped. The Oregon coast has many dramatic beaches but this one is high drama! See the old stagecoach trail carved into the rock. Explore the caves and sandstone formations. Watch the waterfalls. If you are there on a lucky day, the most amazing phenomenon is the wind forming the sand into dancing sand dervishes. These occur only periodically.

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A mighty headland of sandstone juts into the Pacific Ocean just south of Arcadia Beach in the Oregon Coast's Hug Point State Park. Back in the old days, before Highway 101 was built further inland, you would have had to travel by stagecoach along the beach. To make it around the bluff, the coach would drive over a shelf that was carved out of the sandstone for the entire length of the headland, thus “hugging” the point. Now the shelf is studded with potholes filled with sea creatures, but it still provides beach goers access at low tide.

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The wild Pacific Ocean has carved gashes of space into Hug Point’s sandstone flanks. You duck into one, finding it easy to believe in buried treasure. As you approach the end of the cave, the briny smell is overpowering, something is dripping on your head, and you can to hear a faint murmur as you begin to realize the cave is full of life. You look up to come face to face with a vast ceiling of barnacles with claw-like appendages, grasping out of the rock like those creepy shriveled “merfolk” in The Little Mermaid. Crouching low, you make your escape thankful this is the closest you’ll ever get to an alien encounter.

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