Roads End State Recreation Site

Author's Comments

Most of Lincoln City does not feel hidden. This stretch does. You drive to the end of Logan Road, park in a lot that holds maybe twenty cars, and walk a short trail that opens onto a beach the locals have quietly kept to themselves. The headland to the north frames the Pacific in a way that feels almost composed, like someone had a hand in it, and at low tide the basalt comes up out of the sand in dark, complicated shapes that hold pools of water and small lives. I came here for the first time on a January afternoon when the light was already going long by three thirty. That is the gift of winter on this coast. You do not have to wait until evening for golden hour because the sun is already low and the waves are already catching it. I worked the tide pools first, close in with a longer lens, then backed off and let the headland do its work as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Check the tide chart before you come. A high tide at Roads End is a different and lesser place. At low tide the rocks are the photograph, and the long exposure work becomes possible because there are pools and channels that hold the water still while the surf moves behind them. Sunset here is quiet. A handful of people, a few dogs, the occasional beachcomber bent over something interesting in the sand. Nobody is performing. That is what I like about it.

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