Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area is a place I want to love. On paper it has everything I could ask for in an oceanside photographic destination–diverse and active wildlife, rugged and rocky shoreline, isolated lighthouse, elevated views, tide pools, hidden coves and approachable hiking trails.
In reality it's the kind of place that makes me realize I probably couldn't make it as a National Geographic photographer.
Truly heinous acrid odors that burn and sting nostrils, horizontal needle-like rain, driving winds making it impossible to hold a camera still, life-threatening high tides and millions of tiny aggressive black flies. The first time I visited the area a park service vendor was selling t-shirts with the words "I suvived the flies at Yaquina Head" stamped across the chest. I'm not kidding. I never thought that I would have to make a call on whether a photographic composition was worth the risk of having fly eggs deposited in my ear canals, eye sockets and scalp. It's just not the kind of decision my life experience has trained to deal with. Existential suffering for art, yes... but physical suffering, losing my sense of smell for two days, or my life because I was caught in a cove at high tide? Not so much. Hard pass.
But that's Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. Gorgeous but unpleasant, and a little bit risky. Even so, I can't deny there is something special about the place, something fit to purpose for a true Oregonian. In a way the unpleasant weather, foul odors, and biting insects are a right of passage, like the grey skies and endless drizzle that eventually cede control to 75 back-to-back days of the most perfect summer weather imaginable. You just have to keep the faith and carry on. Eventually you will be rewarded with something that nobody who hasn't endured the same challenges could understand. Or find beautiful. After which, if you are like me, you will start to fight to protect the natural beauty of the Oregon experience.
Last Friday I was lucky enough to visit the area on a sunny day during an unusually low tide. The tide was so far back that I could see what looked like exposed seabed, several football fields worth of it, full of tide pools and well away from the cliffs. I've never seen anything like this in Oregon. There were no flies and the beach didn't smell at all so I ran (ok, hobbled) down to the beach and grabbed a single angle of the lighthouse before the rangers closed the park. Why they closed the park a full 90 minutes before sunset, I do not know.
The steep black cobblestone beach can be challenging to navigate but makes for a compelling visual in the right light. If not, there are plenty of gorgeous views from the trails up above and plenty of other hidden spots to explore. It's a small area with a good number of things to experience.
If you're tougher or luckier than me you may get some very nice photos on your first visit. As a native-born Californian-turned-Oregonian I have no natural luck, so I will continue the work to prove that I am worthy to live in this gorgeous state by demonstrating persistence, stubbornness, and willingness to come back again and again–possibly with ear plugs, nose plugs and goggles, but with eyes open–until the light is right and I find what I'm looking for.
It will probably be 42 degrees and raining.
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