Spring Break 2009, or Camping in a Tsunami Zone

This year for spring break we went camping at Nehalem Bay State Park. We hadn't really planned this all out weeks or months ahead of time - we were flying by the seat of our pants.

A few weeks before, we checked the State Parks reservation website, Reserve America. There were no yurt sites anywhere in the system. We decided to break out the pop-up trailer early this year. A little more work than a yurt, but then again - we have most of what we needed already packed. We didn't see too many open sites and we got distracted and just never managed to make a reservation.

With less than a week left, I set about searching to see what was available. I also had to determine which actual site to reserve. Some sites are better than others due to length of the paved pad, amount of trees, grass or sand areas, location of the fire pit, closeness of neighbor sites....on and on. We've camped in quite a few Oregon State Parks - but really haven't kept track of which sites we've like. I should make a note to do that...

So - after a few searches and looking at the park maps - I did my 'final search' - as in "This time I will reserve a site!" And this time - two yurts were available at Nehalem Bay. I had been looking mostly at Beverly Beach, due to the location near Newport. When given a chance for the yurt - we grabbed it. It was only $11 more than a tent/camper site ($27 instead of $16 - winter rates at Nehalem) - so it was definitely worth the extra cost.

The yurts come with sleeping for 5 or 6, an electric heater, a light, a deck, picnic table (sometimes two), fire pit, and basically no insulation. One night we had nice 60° temps in the yurt, the second night when it was clear and not raining - the yurt got down to 56°. The outside temps got down to 35° - which is quite cold for the Oregon coast.

We always bring a cube frig (still working 20 years after college!) and other fun stuff like Christmas lights to hang outside the yurt. I always manage to forget something - like extra extention cords and outlet splitters... They never put outlets in convienient places - or the same place in every yurt.

Our Yurt for two days at Nehalem Bay

We had a great two days and nights at Nehalem. We ate in a restaurant in nearby Manzanita one day - and at the Tillamook Cheese Factory another day. That blog post about our visit there is coming soon...watch for it. Or send me an email saying "I really, really, really want to know how they make the cheese in Oregon!"

There is another interesting item to know about camping on the Oregon Coast. Most of the campgrounds are located in a Tsunami Hazard Zone, in fact - most of the cities on the coast are as well. Kinda scary, eh? The South Beach park in Newport even has an evacuation route to a high ground location right in the park behind a few yurts. So when you hear the loud warning in the middle of the night (I hope it is loud - I've never heard it!) - you can climb up the path and watch the ocean rise, come in, and flood the campground.

Tsunami Sign at Tolovana Beach Park in Cannon Beach

Sign outside Nehalem Bay campground pointing to safety

We survived the dangerous conditions (no earthquakes on this visit - though the Juan de Fuca plate is counting down -tech words here, Pacific NW Earthquake info here) - the rain Tuesday night was the worst. Looking at the tent campers next to us after that downpour made us very glad we had the yurt.