Ghost Forest of Hug Point, Near Cannon Beach: 4,000-Year-Old Oregon Coast Rarity

Published 11/04/24 at 6:25 a.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Cannon Beach, Oregon) – They've turned the world upside down for some, but more often than not they've made for numerous surprised expressions when people find out what these crusty ol' things are. Even more frequently, unfortunately, they've spawned a load of internet misinformation overload, even from most respectable organizations. (Photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection)

The ghost forests along the Oregon coast are one of the region's most headscratching finds, and even though there's a ton of them hiding all over the place, Neskowin's ghost stumps get all the attention. They're by far and away not the most interesting of the bunch.

In fact, one of the rarest sets of them are hiding at Hug Point just south of Cannon Beach. It takes a lot of sand to get removed from this spot for its ghost forests to show, but when they do it's spectacular. They're often accompanied by other oddities called red towers: small, reddish concretions of sand and iron that create intricate patterns or blobs. That's another story. Rare, Surreal Find Along Oregon, Washington Coast: Red Towers

Hug Point's ghost forests are nearly 4,000 years old, twice as old as Neskowin's. How do they know that? Funny you should ask. The sources were geologists Roger Hart and Dr. Curt Peterson back in the 2000s. They carbon dated most if not all the 45 locations they have listed (though some have been uncovered since the publication of their paper in 2006). See the full list of ghost forests.

Photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection

In fact, back in 2007 Hart talked to Oregon Coast Beach Connection (it was our first year of publication), when the Hug Point and neighboring Arch Cape ghost forests popped up, making major publicity for the first time.

“Curt Peterson and I published a radiocarbon on a sample taken from the Arch Cape stumps in 1998,” Hart said. “The age is 3,660 with an error of 70. This means these trees died at that time, were buried in sand, and have been preserved under a cover of sand until now.”

Hart died within a few years of the conversation. (Ghost forest photo courtesy Seaside Aquarium's Tiffany Boothe)

It's all curious because Hart was one of the original geologists who claimed the ghost forests here – especially Neksowin – were from a massive quake that buried the trees. That, unfortunately has been the story that stuck, with major media and Oregon travel sites claiming this is their origin story.

It's not.

Yet Hart and Peterson's paper, “Late-Holocene buried forests on the Oregon Coast," said otherwise. It was a slow, gradual process – not the big quake everyone loves to shout about. The landscape simply changed over decades.

Hart told Oregon Coast Beach Connection back then he was in the middle of retracting the quake theory. Now, when you see a media organization mention the origin of the ghost forests you'll notice they always say “scientists say....” without ever quoting a single geologist.

Later interviews with Curt Peterson and others dig even further into the slow process story, and show how no one is getting this origin right. See the real story Explanations of Neskowin Ghost Forest Wrong, Say Oregon Coast Geologists

Seaside geologist Tom Horning is another who has weighed in on this publicly.

That controversy aside, the Cannon Beach-area ghost forests are exceptionally cool, but they don't come out every year. Hug Point and Arch Cape have to get really scoured out by winter storms. If they appear, it's usually around December or January and often only briefly.

“The stumps at Hug Point are numerous,” Horning said. Back in 2007. “The trees are up to several hundred years in age. They have wide growth rings, indicating ideal growing conditions at the time. They extend to within 60 feet of the cliffs.”

Back then, Hart noted the 2007 event showed them more exposed than in the '90s, and indeed that winter saw the erosion of some ghost forest stumps at Neskowin. Oregon State Parks reported some that had been torn out of the beach ended up at Cape Lookout.

Days of the Neskowin ghost forest may be numbered somewhat. Those south of Cannon Beach are likely safe for awhile.

Horning told Oregon Coast Beach Connection back then that drilling for water wells in the area has revealed other such entombed forests, sometimes 50 feet below the sand, and 14 feet below sea level. Some of these buried stumps go on for about a mile north of Hug Point, deep beneath the cliffs or sands.

It's entirely possible there were massive forests of spruce and cedar – maybe even from the same time – that were entombed along here.

Also see: The Unheralded Ghost Forests of South Oregon Coast / Coos Bay in Photos

New Ghost Forest Found at N. Oregon Coast's Happy Camp

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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