Here begins the first in a series of posts to tell the tales from our 2 week trip down the Oregon coast…
To get a jump on the trip, we began our journey after a normal work day, making a 4 1/2 hour drive from Reno, Nevada to Klamath Falls, Oregon for the night. The following day we made the balance of the drive northwest to Astoria, OR, where our adventure would start.
Astoria is the oldest city in Oregon, founded in 1876 and was the first American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. Here is where the Lewis and Clark Expedition ended at Fort Clatsop in 1805. The city lies in the northwest corner of Oregon on the south shore of the Columbia River where it meets the Pacific Ocean.
We got checked in to the Motel 6 mid afternoon and were not thrilled at the accommodations. But we had more important things to be concerning ourselves with at the time. Where should we go for the golden hour and sunset?
We decided to go out to the nearby Fort Stevens State Park, And more specifically, the Wreck of the Peter Iredale. The Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel barque sailing vessel that ran ashore in thick fog and heavy winds while trying to make the Columbia River 4 miles to the north on October 25, 1906.
Today, only a small remnant of the ships bow and mast remains visible. The balance has been taken by the sea and sunken deeper into the sand. While there, I ran into a local that said she used to play on the wreck as a child and recalls much more of the ship being visible and above the sand than what we see today.
We arrived a couple of hours before sunset at a lower tide, allowing time to get familiar with the area, capture some initial shots while we waited on the sunset. We climbed a nearby grassy dune as the sun neared the horizon. Then back down to the wreck to capture the spectacle as the warm glow of the sunset reflected on the flood tide beginning to engulf the ghostly Peter Iredale…
