West Slope of the Cascades
Formed from massive lava flows from fifty million years ago, the once gentle western slope is now cut by deep canyons.
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Newport
The attractive town of Newport offers several museums dedicated to the Pacific coast, and 35 miles of beaches and cliffs.
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Florence
This port town on the Umpqua River has a lively downtown. It sits at the northern end of the 54 mile long
Oregon Dunes, with a good National Forest Service recreation area at its tip.
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Golden and Silver Falls State Park
This park deep in the Coast Range near Coos Bay features two tall waterfalls and a lovely old forest. Its approach road is a twenty-four mile scenic drive that dead-ends at the park.
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Covered Bridges That Carry Traffic
Twenty-nine of Oregon's 53 covered bridges remain an active part of the state's rural road network. This is a photo essay describing them.
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The Rogue River Area
Rising outside Crater Lake National Park, the Rogue River digs a deep canyon from one side of the Coast Range to the other. Protected as a National Wild and Scenic River, it is Oregon's ultimate kayaking and rafting destination.
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Pacific City Area
Starting fifteen miles north of Licoln City, this twenty mile long stretch of coast features remote beach towns and spectacular cliffs.
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Cliffs
A selection of cliff pictures from along the coast.
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Bandon's Cliffs
Bandon, a town of 3,000 just a half-hour drive south of Coos Bay, may well have the most spectacular cliffs and beaches on the Pacific Coast.
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The Best of 2017
The summer of 2017 saw travel up and down Oregon's coast, shooting in the mountains around the Rogue River Gorge, and covered bridges near Corvalis.
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The Sixes and Elk Rivers
East of Cape Blanco the Sixes River and the Elk River drain the Coast Range. Both are beautiful but their characters are different. While the Sixes is exploited by loggers and gold miners, the Elk runs through cliffs on the borders of two wilderness areas.
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Cape Perpetua Cliffs
Between Florence and Yachats, thirteen miles of cliffs climax at 800' Cape Perpetua. Here US 101 travels along a shelf cut just above the Pacific, with stunning views.
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This little visited area features a ten mile long sandstone canyon that ends in one of the finest waterfalls of the Coast Range. Continue on the good paved road and you'll come to a first-rate view and a very strange bridge.
The towns behind the Oregon Dunes were once at the dead-ends of very long, very winding state roads. Now they are pleasant and attractive stops along the Oregon Coast Highway, US 101.
Coos Bay
All about Coos Bay. This is such a big subject that it has a number of sub-pages.
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Coast Towns of Oregon
This lists every page on this site that's about a coastal town. It looks kinda like what you are looking at now.
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The Lakes Behind the Dunes
The Oregon Dunes block the mouths of all but the biggest rivers. As the rivers back up, lakes form.
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Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area
Oregon's largest dune field stretches for 55 miles, framed by cliffs at Florence and Coos Bay. Most of it is a national recreation area and even more remains in a wild state.
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The Grand Canyon
Here are some pics I took on a brief swing through the park last September.
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Cape Blanco and Port Orford
This 20 mile stretch of coast features beaches, dunes, a lake, and lots of cliffs, with a lighthouse on the top of a cliff and a tiny harbor at the bottom of one.
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Smith River Road
This scenic drive through the Coast Range offers an eighty-five mile long-cut from Reedsport to I-5. It's a forest drive that closely follows the Smith River from a tidal estuary to a mountaintop rivulet.
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The Fishing Village of Charleston
March 2016. Sitting off by itself on the southern edge of Coos Bay and hemmed in by the cliffs of Coos Head, the town of Charleston epitomizes the fishing village. Here commercial and sport fishing mix, and small seafood plants line its docks.
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Cliffs and Dunes of Oregon's Coast
March 2016. Oregon's coast is lined by alternating stretches of dunes and cliffs. The dunes can reach 500 feet high as far back as two miles from the beach, and the longest stretch of them exceeds 55 miles. Cliffs reach 1,700 feet above the ocean and can go on for 28 miles.
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Cover Photographs by Jim Hargan
February 2016.This page shows all of the 36 covers — newspapers, magazines, and books — that feature photographs by Jim Hargan.
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Mountains Surrounding The Old Wagon Road
January 2016. Paved roads follow ridgelines looming over the Old Coos Bay Wagon Road, forming a 67 mile loop around the East Fork Coquille River. These three pages describe
the mountains themselves,
the scenic drive (with directions), and a few of
the more interesting back roads. And there are, of course,
maps.
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Cape Arago's Eight Parks
January 2016. Cliffs line the Pacific side of the Cape Arago Peninsula; a wildlife-rich slough lines the other. They enclose a peninsula with eight parks, featuring cliff-top walks and cliff-side picnicking, a dune-lined swimming beach, several remote beaches and coves, estuary boardwalks, a nature musuem, a formal garden, and three RV parks.
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Driving the Old Coos Bay Wagon Road
January 2016. This 45 mile scenic drive follows Oregon's earliest road to survive intact — neither abandoned nor buried under modern highways. Alternating paved and gravel, it features pastoral farm valleys, old forests, deep gorges, and some spectacular waterfalls. This is the closest you can get to the roads followed by the earliest settlers.
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The Old Coos Bay Wagon Road
December 2015. Of all the wagon roads that served Oregon's earliest settlers, all but one are either abandoned or obliterated by modern highways the Old Coos Bay Wagon Road (often called just "The Old Wagon Road"). Alone of Oregon's earliest roads it neither evolved into a major through route nor dwindled to a farm track.
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All of The Elliott's Side Roads
November 2015. This describes all of The Elliott's side roads that can be driven with an ordinary vehicle, both t
he ones that run within the forest and
the ones that connect it with the outside world It will tell you how to reach the Millacoma River as well as point you to the forest's closest access.
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A Scenic Loop Trough the Elliott State Forest
November 2015. The
Ridgetop Drive circles through
The Elliot, for 51 miles, following its highest ridges along good gravel roads. Here's your complete description, with lots of photos and a map.
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The Elliott State Forest (For Now)
August 2015.The huge (144 square mile) Elliott State Forest, just inland from Coos Bay, offers tremendous scenery from its 49 mile long
Ridgetop Drive, as well as fishing from the Millacoma River, remote and lonely but easily reached with your family car. BlogPacifica gives complete details of all the forest's motorable roads, including directions.
Plus, there's
a map of all the motorable backroads in The Elliott.
Roads of the Coast Range
June 2015. Oregon's Coast Range is incredibly scenic, just the sort of place you might want to explore on back roads. Unfortunately, GPS and mapping apps fill these mountains with junk roads you couldn't possibly follow in a passenger car, or even an ATV. Here you'll find detailed descriptions of every motorable backroad that penetrates any distance into the Coast Range, all personally inspected with a family vehicle.
The Upper Coos River
May 2015. Judging just from the maps it would be the most natural thing in the world for a good road to start in Coos Bay, then cut right through the mountains to the other side. Actually this road exists — you just can't drive on it, as it's part of the strictly private Weyerhauser Millicoma Tree Farm and blocked by gates. Foretunately there are other nifty places to explore in the area, such as the Coos County Forest...
Why Coos Bay? Four Reasons...
December 2014. If you could pick anywhere to live that you wanted to, why would you choose Coos Bay, Oregon? Here are four reasons ... plus a bonus reason.
The Coast Range — What's Its Story?
January 2015. So, I'm sitting in my rented house back East, waiting out the blasted winter so I can drive the family car across the continent to Coos Bay, and I'm wondering what the mountains there will be like. I was sort of expecting a low coastal range, with a great, flat-bottomed north-south valley behind that, and a range of great mountains behind that. What I've been finding, however, is something different, far more complicated and interesting. So I've made a map...
From L.A. to Coos Bay in Five Days
August 2013. When my wife Kasey and I
evaluated where we wanted to live we quickly settled on the Pacific coast with Coos Bay the clear favorite, and with this in mind we set up a five day drive up the coast from Los Angeles to Coos Bay followed a week in a bayside cottage just outside town. Here you'll find five pages about the five days we took, and what we found on our maiden trip to the Pacific Coast.