Southern Beaches About a mile south of Haystack Rock, the family-friendly Tolovana Beach offers ample parking, restrooms, a playground and a nearby grocer. Several lodging and dining options within walking distance make it easy to ditch the car. The beach here also has an ADA-compliant wheelchair ramp that reaches the sand. Continuing south from the Arcadia Beach State Recreation Site (which provides beach access from Highway 101), you’ll come across a historic wagon route. Before Highway 101 was built, settlers traveled by horse, wagon and automobile alongside the surf. The tricky section came when navigating around the headland at Hug Point. The solution was to blast a roadbed into the rock, a route that hikers still use today to get around the point when the tide allows. Beyond the point, caves and a waterfall invite more exploring. You can also reach the spot from the Hug Point Wayside on Highway 101. Northern Beaches Downtown Cannon Beach puts you just steps from the sand with 44 access points throughout town, including the west ends of First, Second and Third streets. Wandering the sand is great any time of year, but in June you can catch the annual Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest, an Oregon Heritage event, held every summer. You can enter the event yourself, too! Across from the freshwater Ecola Creek, Chapman Beach typically sees fewer visitors, unless you count the elk that sometimes loll around the grassy lawn at Les Shirley Park. The Bird Rocks scattered just offshore are home to an estimated 28,000 common murres, the largest nesting colony of these black-and-white seabirds in the world. Crescent Beach hides just beyond those rocks, a halfmile-long beauty best reached by a hiking trail in Ecola State Park that descends steeply through Sitka spruce and thickets of salal. FROM TOP: ROBBIE MCCLARAN; KYLE GENIN Hug Point Crescent Beach OUTDOORS cannonbeach.org 25
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