Indian Sands is an open expanse of clifftop dunes, the fine particles being generated on site from the native sandstone. It was here in 2002 that an Oregon State University archeological team found evidence of a human presence dating back 12,000 years, a time when the coastline was 1 ½ miles farther out to sea. (Most coastal sites from that era would be 400 feet underwater now.) This is the oldest recorded dating of humans on the Oregon Coast and gives credence to the theory that some of the early migrations to the North American continent would have happened by boat down the Pacific Coast rather than through a thousands of miles gap in the continental ice sheet.
I hiked as far as the Thomas Creek Bridge, which at 345 feet above the bottom of the creek’s ravine, is Oregon’s highest bridge. There’s a partial viewpoint from a sketchy trail above the ravine, but these days you can also get a good impression from a former parking area, now blocked off, where trees that impeded a view were axed during bridge repairs in 2018.
Whaleshead Beach is farther south. Whalehead Island, a singular stack close to shore, resembles the snout of a breaching gray whale. I didn’t get to see the whale “spout,” which happens when high tide surf gets funneled through a hole in the rock. Two other flat-topped stacks farther out sometimes get mistaken for the “whalehead,” as they look something like a sperm whale, but these rocks have no name.
It’s a pleasant walk up the beach, getting a view of a small waterfall and then connecting with a trail (official OCT?) that is marked by poles as it winds up a grassy headland. From here, you can see that House Rock actually looks like a house on a rock. The trail slips away down the slope once you get in the woods, but I believe TKO is down there as I write this, assessing and plotting reroutes. I looped back close to the highway, a diversion taking me to views of the small waterfall, and then dropping steeply from a parking area back down to the beach.
