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Haystack Rock – Haystack Rock is a giant sea stack, over 200 ft high, and it really does seem like a lumpy haystack. Look for puffins and cormorants hanging out on the rock. Go at low tide to explore the tide pools, teeming with sea anemones, sea urchins, starfish, barnacles and hermit crabs. The best tide pools are those closest to the stack, and check the tide tables to be there at low tide (at high tide the tide pools are submerged). |
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Play on the beach – Ecola Creek comes in at the northern end of the beach, this is a great spot for little kids to wade in the shallow water and dig with buckets and shovels. Search for sand dollars and shells on the beach. Fly kites (you can buy kites in the shops in town). Rent bicycles (beach cruisers) which you can pedal all over the sand. |
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Horseback rides – Sea Ranch Stables has daily guided rides on the beach in summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day), one hour rides to Chapman Point or Haystack Rock. For kids 7 and up. |
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Playground – On N. Spruce St., one block from the visitor information center is a nice playground with climbing structures. |
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Ecola State Park – In 1806, members of the Lewis & Clark Corp of Discovery, including Sacajawea, tromped along the coastline here on their way to Cannon Beach to find a large beached whale (ekoli is the Chinook word for whale). For Sacajawea, this trip was her first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, and she insisted on coming along. The whale was only a skeleton by the time the Corps arrived on the beach, the blubber already stripped away by the local Tillamook Indians. |
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 Ecola Point – Ecola Point is a short drive into the park, with grass and a picnic table, and fabulous views of Haystack Rock. |
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April and May, this is a good vantage spot to look for migrating gray whales in the ocean. |
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Indian Beach – Continue down the road through moss covered trees and ferns to Indian Beach, a great place to spend the afternoon. There are picnic tables, a creek that flows into the beach (kids can build rock dams in the creek and splash in the shallows), driftwood piled all around, and tide pools with starfish and sea anemones |
