Welcome back to National Parks & other public lands with T! If you are seeing this on Twitter or Facebook, please visit the blog to see all of the photos and read the story by clicking the link.
The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area is a National Recreation Area contained within the Siuslaw National Forest and so is a unit of the US Forest Service, not the NPS. Back in my post on Flathead National Forest, I talked briefly about the Forest Service’s mission of managed conservation vs. the National Park Service’s goal of preservation. As a result of this different ‘prime directive’, you are likely to find more commercial recreational opportunities in National Forest lands.
Oregon Dunes is a 40 mile stretch along the southern Oregon coastline of temperate sand dunes intermingled with forested land. We stopped in a few sections of this park on our drive down Highway 101 to Redwoods National Park.
Our first stop was in the northern section in Florence, Oregon. We took a sandrail tour with Sandland Adventures, giving us our first glimpse of these sand mountains.
Our driver and tour guide was Ben. We took the thirty minute tour and it was a wild, thrilling ride around the dunes with some scenic interludes while we caught our breath. There is a calmer ride available on a sort of dune bus for those with motion sickness issues.
The dunes themselves are the result of millions of years of wind erosion. Some of them are 500 feet above sea level. Here and there you will find a forested oasis in the middle of all that sand.
As we traveled south the dunes were visible from the highway in some sections. Our next stop was in Reedsport where we found the park’s Visitor Center was closed. So we had lunch across the street at the Harbor Light Family Restaurant.
This is a small place, frequented by locals. We did have to wait 15 minutes for a table to open up, but it was worth the wait. They source many of their ingredients locally. Two of us had the chicken pot pie. They have a smoker and use the tender smoked chicken in the pot pie. Yum!
After lunch, we visited Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. This park is centered within Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area. Though the dunes here are not as dramatic as in the Northern section, there is a beautiful ocean vista, a historic lighthouse (circa 1894) and a small museum.
Location: 855 U.S. 101, Reedsport, OR 97467
Designation: National Forest, National Recreation Area
Date designation declared: 3/23/1972
Date of my visit: 8/20/2016
Love the post and pictures! My hubby and I are from Oregon, he is from the coast close to Coos Bay! You did a great job with the post!
Thanks so much! It’s a beautiful area!
Glad that you got to experience this great aspect of the Great Northwest! As you know, there are a wealth of others.
Ah yes! Hoping to see the Eastern part of the state someday!
Reblogged this on ravenhawks' magazine.
Looks like a fun spot. I hope you had fun putting your bare feet in the sand.
No bare feet allowed on the buggy, lol
Bummer.
Thanks for these great photos. Alie says I remember everything in terms of food, ideally pie. Just north of the dunes in Newport, I had my first marionberry pie – delicious.
Yum! Marionberry pie sounds delicious right about now
that looks like fun
It was! 🙂
Looks like a great mix between a beauty and a blast! 🙂
It was so much fun!
I hope you had a chance to walk around the dunes a bit. I have some fond memories of camping there with my family when I was little. My brothers and I loved climbing up the big sand hill from the campground and exploring. We’d occasionally find a little puddle with critters. The buggy ride was a blast, too.
We didn’t walk those dunes as we had to get on down to Crescent City by late afternoon. The next year, though, we did hike through Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah…interesting, but hard work!
If you ever crave a quieter, more serene experience of sand dunes, I can highly recommend the Great Sand Dunes Ntl. Park and Preserve in Colorado (if you have not already experienced them).
https://www.nps.gov/grsa/index.htm
Yes, it’s on my list…hopefully we will make it out there someday!
I think that my husband would love the dune rides, they look fun.
It was so much fun!