The road, US Highway 101, was interesting in itself. I'm used to this road as a mighty freeway in California. Up here it is more like a rural road, a US highway circa 1935. It winds and weaves. There is virtually no shoulder. The road is sometimes rough, I suppose from too many logging trucks and an old-style road base. The traffic is light, but its a bit scary where you're approached by a car that has not turned on its lights.
I started from Long Beach, Washington, which claims, chamber-of-commerce fashion to be the longest beach in the world. I'm not of a mind to test the claim, and instead head for Cape Disappointment on the northern edge of where the Columbia River meets the sea. Since 1856 it has had a lighthouse to mark its location for mariners attempting to cross the Columbia River bar. They first attempted to construct a lighthouse at this location in 1853, but the ship carrying the building supplies was lost on the bar.
The Columbia River bar is the area's most interesting feature, in my opinion. It is where the current of the Columbia River dissipates as its reaches the ocean. It is a pile of sandy sediment about six miles wide (perpendicular to the river flow) and three miles across. It is caused by a river current of 4 to 7 knots meeting the incoming and diagonal flow of the ocean and tidal currents. Waves across the bar can be up to 40 feet high. Unlike other major rivers that dissipate their flow through a delta, the Columbia River focuses its flow "like a fire hose", which renders its force a constant threat. Jetties were built at the turn of the 19th century to anchor some of the out-flowing sediment and to regularize the channel, but the bar remains a potent force.
The bar was a major impediment to the establishment of rival claims to the Oregon Territory in 1792 by American captain Robert Gray and British Captain George Vancouver. After scouting the location for several days and waiting for proper tidal conditions, Gray crossed the bar and entered the Columbia River in March, 1792. He named the river after his ship, the Columbia Rediviva. Vancouver deemed his lead ship, Discovery, too large to cross the bar and instead dispatched a smaller ship, the Chatham under Lt. William Broughton. Gray went 14 miles inland, while Broughton went as far as the Columbia Gorge near Multnomah Falls. Both made claims to the land. Vancouver refused to recognize Gray's name for the river and instead declared it to be the Oregon River. This all ended up being academic, as the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 gave the territory to the United States, and the river forever after has been known as the Columbia. Much of this history and some outstanding exhibits and videos concern the bar are found in the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.
The highlight of my drive down the Oregon coast to Newport (other than the perspective indicated above) was a visit to the D River in Lincoln City. It is claimed to be the world's shortest river at 442 feet long, beating out the Roe River in Great Falls, Montana. Having seen both rivers, the Roe is both more beautiful and more impressive. The D River flows from Devil's Lake to the Pacific Ocean. The Roe River flows from Giant Spring to the Missouri River. Obviously, neither looks at all similar to the Columbia. Here are my photos of both rivers.
D River, Oregon:
Roe River, Montana:
Julie said to make sure I saw Haystack Rock at Cannon City, Oregon. So I did:
Mileage: 174. Cumulative mileage: 3,394.
