This post continues the tale of our escaping the brutal heat of Central Oregon by heading to the Oregon Coast in Yachats. In the previous post, we drove from Bend via the McKenzie Highway to Eugene where we had lunch. After lunch at the excellent Gratitude Brewing, we drove basically due west from Eugene on OR 126, continuing along the road that we had followed down out of the Cascades into the Willamette Valley and Eugene.
The trip on 126 was largely uneventful and certainly not as scenic as going to the coast on other routes such as OR 26 out of Portland or OR 18/22 out of McMinnville. The Coast Range is clearly much lower and easier to traverse in this part of the state. Starting at Mapleton, the pretty vistas of the Siuslaw River heading downhill out of the mountains into Florence on the coast made up for the lack of views that the lower Coast Range mountains offered.
In planning our trip, I looked for things to occupy our time along the route, knowing that we could not get into our room until after 4pm, especially things north of Florence on our way into Yachats. As I developed my list and winnowed it, I kept coming back to Sea Lion Caves. I struggled mightily, wrangling with the possibility that it might be a totally cheesy tourist trap designed to part cash from suckers à la P.T. Barnum.
In the end, I decided, "What the hell; let's go for it." The overarching decider for me was that Ann and I have never seen a Steller's Sea Lion before, having struck out all along the Oregon Coast and in Alaska. And I have got to say that I came away fairly impressed. Though it has all the hallmarks of a tourist trap, Sea Lion Caves is a great place to view the sea lions and get a bit of education in the process. As we will see in the photos below, it also let me get up close to a colony of Brandt's Cormorants, close enough to see their characteristic blue faces.
We parked on the inland side of highway 101 and walked across to the gift shop/entrance on the ocean side. Once inside, I still had "Tourist Trap!" echoing around my brain, but still, we got in the short line at the register among all the touristy schlock for our entrance tickets. From there, we exited the back of the building and had a choice of turning left (south) or right (north) along the paved path running along the top of the cliff.
To the left is an overlook onto a large sea lion haul-out and to the right is the elevator going down into the cave complex where the sea lions hang out. We chose first to walk south, saving the caves for later. As you will see in the photos below, it was alternately sunny and then foggy, a harbinger of things to come later in the day.
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| Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea |
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| The Less Common White Form |
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| Looking South Toward Florence |
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| Salal, Gaultheria shallon, Still in Bloom |
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| Gold, Fuschia, and Green: Fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium |
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| Common Heal-All, Prunella vulgaris |
Walking along the cliff top before descending to the platform overlooking the sea lion haul-out, we could hear hear the colony of sea lions barking and murmuring long before we could see them. Having seen and heard a lot of the really vocal and smaller California Sea Lions along the Oregon Coast, I was not surprised that their larger cousins were nearly as vociferous and raucous. We spent several minutes watching their antics.
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| This Haul-Out Hosted Perhaps 150 Steller's Sea Lions |
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This Bull was Especially Noisy
Unlike the Bigger One Passed Out in a Pile of Cows |
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| This One Hauled Out Barking Constantly |
Having watched the sea lions and their antics at the southern haul-out, we headed back to the overlook just behind the gift shop, before heading north along the path for the elevator down into the caves.
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| Our First View of Heceta Head Lighthouse and the Incoming Fog |
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| Seaside Daisy, Erigeron glaucus |
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| Cows Clover, Trifolium wormskioldii |
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| Bumblebee on a Bull Thistle, Cirsium vulgare |
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| Sea Holly (aka Rushleaf Eryngo), Eryngium petiolatum |
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| Hairy Evening Primrose, Oenothera villosa |
At the elevator doors, it was a couple-minute wait for the car to arrive topside and then a fairly quick descent of about 200 feet. When the elevator doors closed, the lights dimmed a great deal to prep our eyes for the darkness below. Exiting the elevator, we walked down to a landing with the main cave to our left and a flight of steps leading up to the right. First, we walked left to see the sea lions, a couple hundred strong, piled up on the rocks. The light is so low that I had to bump the ISO on the camera pretty high. As a result, the pictures are a bit grainy, but they give a good idea of what you'll see.
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| Piled on a Rock in the Middle of the Cave |
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| Bull Posturing While Cow Attends to Her Pup |
After seeing the sea lions, we walked back and up the steps that were originally to our right passing several educational exhibits on our way to a viewpoint looking out of the caves to the north. This was, in fact, the original entrance to the caves before the elevator was installed. The viewpoint looks out over a colony of sea birds directly at Heceta Head Lighthouse.
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