Yesterday we took a road trip to see our nephew and poke around the Oregon Coast. We visited Ecola State Park, which is lovely. It is the location of the famous Goonies sea stacks; it also has very beautiful spruce coastal forest.

Many people just take a picture from the viewpoint, but we took a nice hike through the woods. It tantalized us with glimpses of the beach for over a mile before a steep switchback trail allowed us to descend to the beach.

The trail winds through beautiful coastal Sitka spruce forest. The understory is mostly salal and sword ferns. The forest has some true giants; this was one of my favorites, because of the swooping limb that was itself the size of a tree.

The beach itself is beautiful, fine pale sand bookended by headlands that have eroded into sea stacks in both directions.

This picture is back towards the bluff by the parking area. It looks so close, but the actual walk is more than a mile.

It was a pleasant walk, although a bit of a scramble in a couple spots. It would be difficult if you had bad knees.

Here is the view from the bluff near the parking lot. This view is available to all, having excellent access from the parking lot. 

There are lots of picnic tables near the parking lot — it would be a lovely spot for a picnic!

We happened to go on Goonies day, so I’m sure there were four times as many people as usual. Even so, once we were out on the trail we only passed the occasional hiker.

Highly recommended!