Oregon: Devil’s Churn

On Saturday, we headed out to two of my favorite places on the central Oregon coast: Devil’s Churn and Thor’s Well. We could easily spend all day at just one of those locations, happily shooting photos and video, but we did actually make it back home at a reasonable hour. 🙂

Both locations are in the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, which is part of the Siuslaw National Forest. We used our Interagency Annual Pass for entrance to Devil’s Churn. The other pay options are cash or the Northwest Forest Pass.

Devil’s Churn

Our first glimpse – cloudy, of course!

From the first landing on the trail at Devil’s Churn – the first glimpse.

You can tell how windy it was when we first got here by looking at the grass growing along the trail.

Grasses in the foreground bent to the right due to wind. Devil's Churn in the background.
Grasses blowing to the right, while the waves are moving along in Devil’s Churn behind them.

I found a place fairly close to the end of the stairs, positioning myself to capture the waves crashing against the rocks.

Waves crashing against the rocks.
Waves crashing against the rocks.

Of course, it gets better – you just have to wait for the right wave.

Waves crashing against the rocks, but better wave action.
Waves crashing against the rocks, but better wave action.

Or this wave.

Even better wave action.
Even better wave action.

I briefly moved to a new location farther back, but I wasn’t impressed with my view. I wasn’t getting enough wave action to stay here for long.

Too much rock, not enough wave action.
Too much rock, not enough wave action.

So I moved a bit further back and got a better angle.

Much better angle from back here. Just need more wave action.

The person in the distance is Bob, recording some wave action on video. At this point, we had outlasted everyone who had initially been on the rocks, and we had it all to ourselves.

The incoming high tide waves started coming in more often, leading to some epic wave action, so I switched to my zoom lens to get some closeups.

Sometimes, it’s the shot before the explosion of water that shows the intensity of the wave.
Water smashing up against the rocks and splashing back.
And the water goes wild as waves meet from different directions.

We realized that now might be a really good time to go, as we were in danger of major ledge splashing, so we started to pack up our gear. Nope, we looked over towards the Pacific Ocean, and we see blue skies. We got a few more photos and video with blue skies, then packed up our gear.

An awesome way to end our time at Devil’s Churn, with blue skies in the background.
This is the final shot from Devil’s Churn, from the first landing where we took the cloudy photo.

Our next post will go into our visit at Cook’s Chasm, located less than a mile south of Devil’s Churn.

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