Secret Beach is Ironically Famous on South Oregon Coast | Video

Published 09/30/21 at 5:56 AM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Brookings Oregon) – From secretive to well known on social media, Secret Beach (near Brookings) walks an interesting line between unknown and yet much-talked about. (Photo courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts)

Secret Beach is a southern Oregon coast wonder that is not an actual secret, except that it does have relatively few visitors. At the very northern edges of the Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor, Secret Beach is not even really an official beach as the name seems to have just been tacked onto the place. It's not run by State Parks exactly: it's really pure coastal wilderness.

Photo courtesy Oregon Coast Visitors Association

It's also not there 100 percent of the time: only visit this place at a low tide. The beach is so narrow that anything but lower tides negate it, cover it up. This makes it especially dangerous in such moments. Still, there are a couple high vantage point spots to soak in what the place has to offer.

Getting there is a bit of a hike: it's several hundred feet down from the gravel parking lot. Some of it is a fairly easy trek, except for the last slope which has quite a steep grade to it.

On Secret Beach itself and from the viewpoints, rocky blobs and sea stacks abound, some with what appear to be miniature ecosystems all their own. Small, green spots on top provide enough soil for even a tree or two.

A variety of crevices exist here, many unreachable along with sea caves you can never visit, often tucked inside sea stacks of varying degrees of remoteness. Rocky arches are numerous, now slowly thinning at the tops, hinting that one day they too will crumble and create two sea stacks where one stood.

Along one remote section of Secret Beach there is an arch you can walk through and a sea cave you can visit - or at least you can get close to these on occasion.

Photo courtesy Oregon Coast Visitors Association

The bottoms of the cliffs tell dramatic, geologic tales of uplift and tilting, while the upper parts are jagged, crusty and scarred with landslides. This, too, is also hinting at ancient as well as not-too-distant stories of a shifting hillside. Parts of the rocks here – not unlike the always-varied south Oregon coast - look scaly, like some alien creature. They're in a dizzying array of shapes and configurations.

Down on the beach itself, there's a softer, grayer sand – but again, there's not much of it.

During winters or even just higher tides, the seas make for quite a show. Tempestuous ocean conditions make for insane wave drama, with breakers bouncing from rock to rock like a pinball machine. This tight little cove angers that restless ocean, and it responds with eye-popping ferocity.

You'll find the southern Oregon coast gem of Secret Beach close to milepost 345 on Highway 101, near Brookings.

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Courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts

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