Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Yaquina Head Lighthouse is located at central Oregon coast, near the city of Newport. It is popular among visitors due to its unique tide pool ecosystem. The tide pool consists of various marine life creatures such as starfish, sea anemone, and others. To get to Yaquina Head Lighthouse, it is about 2.5 hours away from Portland, so it is definitely doable as a day trip during the weekend.


We headed to Yaquina Head Lighthouse at 8AM in the morning so that we could get there before the low tide that would happen around 11:20AM. The low tide would bring the tide down to about 1.2M (about 4 feet) and we would have access to the tide pool to see all the marine life. The lowest tide was actually around 4AM in the morning but we would not be able to get there that early and not sure if it would be even accessible.

We got to Yaquina Head Lighthouse around 10:30AM. The admission fee is $7 per vehicle or people could park the car outside and walk in for free. The ranger station only took cash, but there was an automated parking machine that takes credit card. We drove to the Yaquina Head Interpretation Center first to take a break and visit the information on the lighthouse. People could park car here and do a short hike to the lighthouse because the parking space at the lighthouse is limited. We chose to drive to the lighthouse and parked there instead since it was still early.

As soon as we got to the lighthouse. we took the stairs down to Cobble Beach, where the tide pool is at. There was a sign showing where the tide pool is in case people could not find it. The Cobble Beach had tons and tons of round volcanic rocks. These rocks were washed and eroded by the ocean waves and became extremely round. When walking on the Cobble Beach, do watch steps so that you don't trip yourself over the rocks.

As we headed down to the tide pool among the rocks, we had to be very careful to walk around the marine life creatures so that we would not step on them. We saw a lot of green sea anemone in the tide pool and they were soft when you touch them. There were also purple sea urchins in the pool. On the rocks further away, we could see many seals laying on the rocks. These seals don't come close to the beach however and there were signs telling people not to approach further.

When we went to the lighthouse, we could see the far side of the ocean. Some people said they were able to see the whales migrating South with binoculars. Unfortunately we did not see any.

Overall, this was a very interesting experience to see all the marine life at the tide pool. The tide pool here is very accessible and highly recommend to come here for a visit.

Broken Top

Broken Top is one of the volcanic mountain located near Bend in central Oregon. Its name came from the fact that the top of the mountain was broke off with jagged edges. The mountain is located in Three Sisters Wilderness, and it is located very close to Mount Bachelor and South Sisters. Broken Top hiking trail is not as popular as South Sister, but there is still a trail the goes all the way to the top of Broken Top. In addition, the hike to Broken Top is not as strenuous as the hike to South Sister Summit. The elevation gain is only about 2000ft over 7.5 miles from Todd Lake. Since it was already September near the end of the summer, we decided to do the Broken Top hike as the last long hike that we do this year.


We left Portland and headed to Bend right after work. The traffic on the highway was much better than what we expected. We were thinking that perhaps most people had already left Portland to enjoy the long weekend. We were able to get to Bend within 3.5 hours at around 9:30PM. We did not stop at Bend however. We continued further and headed towards West on Cascade Highway to get to Devils Lake. This is where the trail head is for South Sister Summit. We planned to stay here overnight in the car and do the Broken Top hike early in the morning.

When we got to Devils Lake, it was pitch dark and there was a lot of cars in the parking lot already. It was almost full but we were able to find a nice spot. As we got out of the car, we could see so many stars blinking in the night sky above us. The milky way was stretching over the sky. It was so clear.

As we walked around to get prepare to rest, several more cars came to the parking lot. The people were here to do the night hike to South Sister Summit and asked me how to get there. We were surprised with the number of people doing night hike at this time. It was probably due to the long weekend.

We rested in the car over the night. We brought thick blankets with us as the night did get very cold after midnight. We lowered the back of the car seat so that it would lay more flat to get us more comfortable, but it could not get completely flat unfortunately. During the night, we seemed to have accidentally hit the button to open the trunk and that scared us a bit. Luckily, it was us who accidentally opened it and it wasn't someone else who tried to do so. At around 5:30AM, we woke up and could see the twilight in the sky. We got up and started to get ready for the hike.

We drove the Todd Lake at around 6:00AM since this is where the trail head is to get to Broken Top. From Todd Lake to Broken Top is about 7.5 trails. We would first hike on Todd Lake trail, and after 3.5 miles, we would switch to Broken Top trail. There is a shorter trail to get to Broken Top. This shorter trail requires people to drive further in into the wilderness on a poorly maintained forest road and requires high clearance vehicle. Although we did drive an SUV, we did not want to risk it. Besides, we didn't think 7.5 miles with 2000ft elevation gain was a big deal.

We started hike at around 6:30AM on Todd Lake trail. It was extremely quiet since it was early in the morning. We could see fogs floating above the lake. It was actually quite boring not seeing anyone on the trail. We hiked nearly 3.5 miles to Broken Top trail before we actually ran into another group of hikers.

The previous 3.5 miles was mostly in the forest. Starting from Broken Top trail, we were within the deserted wilderness of Three Sisters. We could see miles and miles of wilderness and could not see a single soul. It felt very quiet and felt like we were isolated from the civilization. We continued on Broken Top trail and there were few parts where we had to step on the stones to cross streams of river. After about an hour walking along the trail to get to the backside of Broken Top, we finally got to the bottom of Broken Top to get ready to climb upwards. This is also the intersection between the long trail and the short trail, and we started to see more people here since most people would do the short trail hike.

From here, the trail started to climb a bit, but not too steep. This part of the trail was filled with volcanic ashes with streams of water running through. We also saw several dogs enjoying its time running around along the flat surface. It was a great scene to see. One of the large dog actually ran towards us and gave us a cute hop. We bet that he probably smelled the jerky in my backpack.

The final 0.25 miles to get to No Name Lake was probably the most difficult part of the hike. The trail was steep with a lot of lose rocks on the trail. We had to be a bit careful when going upwards. This part was very short however and we finally reached No Name Lake. This lake is located at the top of Broken Top and  is formed from the melted snow at Broken Top. The color of No Name Lake was not as clear as I thought however. It was a bit dirty looking color, probably due to the volcanic ash.

From No Name Lake, we continued further for about one more miles to get to the North side of Broken Top. From the ridge on the back side, we could see South Sisters, North Sisters, Mount Washington, and Mount Jefferson. It was an amazing view. We highly recommend to hike 1 more miles after reaching No Name Lake so that you could get an amazing view of Cascade mountains.

Overall, we had an amazing time hiking this trail. It took us about 3.5 hours to go from Todd Lake to the top of Broken Top. When we got back to Todd Lake, it was about 1:30PM. We were physically tired, but pushed ourselves to get back to the trail head. We highly recommend doing this hike to enjoy the wild. If 7.5 miles is too long, the shorter hike of 2.5 miles is always available.