Secret Beach

Author's Comments

The trailhead does not announce itself. A pull-off on the highway, a gap in the trees, and then a half mile of descent through Sitka spruce and salal that drops you out of one world and into another. I have been to most of the Boardman beaches, and Secret is the one I think about when I am away from the coast. Not because it is the most dramatic - China Beach has a stronger argument for that - but because the arrival still feels earned. Low tide is non-negotiable. The arches only read as arches when the water has pulled back far enough to walk through them, and the small waterfall at the south end of the cove only feels like a discovery when you can stand in the wet sand at its base and look back at the way you came. I have been here in late June with the marine layer holding off until just before sunset, and I have been here in October with the light going long and orange across the sea stacks. Both worked. Both gave me something. The photograph I keep trying to make is the wide one - the whole crescent, the stacks offshore, the waterfall as a thin white line against dark rock, all of it held together by the last of the golden hour. A long exposure softens the surf and lets the stacks become the subject they want to be. Bring a tripod. Bring a headlamp for the climb back up, because you will stay later than you meant to. That is the nature of this place. It does not give itself up easily, and it does not let you leave on schedule either.

Gallery