Quick Guide to Harris Beach State Park
After passing by Harris Beach State Park on two different Pacific Coast road trips, I finally fixed the oversight. Saying exceeded expectations doesn’t cover it. Despite having a packed three-day itinerary around Brookings, Oregon, I went to Harris Beach three times. No regrets. With rugged coastal bluffs, sea stacks for days, and excellent wildlife-watching potential, this park encapsulates what is magical about the southern Oregon Coast. Here is everything you need to know about visiting Harris Beach State Park.
Low tide reveals tons of sea stars
Know before you go
It’s free to visit Harris Beach State Park unless you’re camping. You don’t need a pass or permit for day-use parking.
Dogs are welcome in the park, including the campground.
Look for a restroom building in the main day-use parking lot.
There are a few picnic tables with beach views.
Ramps descend from the parking lot to Harris Beach. You could take a stroller or wheelchair down them. Beyond the ramp, the terrain is sand. Accessible parking, viewpoint, picnic table, and restroom. The campground has an accessible site and shower facilities.
Sunrise at Harris Beach
Harris Beach
On the far north end of Brookings, Harris Beach State Park has more in common with the breathtaking Samuel Boardman Corridor than the unlovely town along Highway 101. The park is beautiful and undeveloped despite being minutes from a grocery store. On a clear day, you can see 24 miles of Oregon’s coastline dotted with rugged sea stacks.
Harris Beach
Once you turn off the highway, a short road will take you past a couple of beach access points and the Harris Beach State Park campground. The main day-use parking lot and beach access are at the end of this road. Nearby are the restroom building, a few picnic tables, and an impressive series of ramps heading down to the beach.
Ramp to the beach
Once you're down the ramp, you can explore Harris Beach in either direction. The park’s most striking feature is Goat Island, also called Bird Island. Towering offshore at 184 feet tall and with 21 acres of land, it’s Oregon’s largest coastal island. It’s just as goat-less as you’d expect, but seabirds love it. Bring binoculars to look for pelicans, gulls, and cormorants perched on rocky ledges. Rare birds sometimes nest on Goat Island, including tufted puffins.
Goat (or Bird) Island
Heading north, you’ll cross Harris Creek, where it can be tricky to keep your feet dry after a heavy rain. The beach extends about a half mile past the creek, ending at a small headland and a whole lot of boulders blocking access farther north.
End of the walkable beach
On the way, you’ll pass dozens of strange and wonderful sea stacks. When the tide is low, look for sea stars, anemones, mussels, barnacles, and algae around their bases.
Sea stars and gooseneck barnacles at low tide
The beach to the south has just as many intriguing sea stacks. The most interesting of them is just past the access ramp, a tall arch with a narrow slit down the center. Waves pass through this opening and lap onto the colorful rocks on the beach, worn smooth over time. This area is also a great place to look for intertidal life at low tide.
Sea arch
If you totter over the rock pile, you can continue on Harris Beach toward Brookings. Heading this way, you’ll start to see houses perched on the coastal bluffs. Out in the water, sea stacks decorate the coastline to the south for miles.
Harris Beach to the south
Harris Beach received over 1.7 million visitors in 2023, a statistic I find hard to reconcile with the solitude I found there. During my several visits, I saw only a handful of other people on the beach, even on a Sunday morning in August. Compared to the summer crowds at Cannon Beach or any of Lincoln City’s beaches, it’s deserted. I suspect that the park’s size and distance from major cities keep it feeling peaceful even during popular travel times.
Where are these alleged millions?
Trails
Harris Beach State Park is more about walking along the beach than formal hikes, but there are several short trails worth exploring.
Harris Butte
Distance: 0.3 miles (from the campground) or 0.6 miles (from the beach), out and back
Elevation: 150 feet (from the beach)
Difficulty: Easy
View from Harris Butte
The short and rewarding hike up Harris Butte is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. When you’re on the beach, look inland up the steep hillside on the other side of the parking lot. This hill is Harris Butte. If you look closely, you can make out a split rail fence at the top, the hike’s destination.
The quickest way to hike up the butte is to start at the campground. If you aren’t camping, look for a few day-use parking spaces along the road. Outside the campground entrance, you’ll see a sign pointing toward “trails.” Follow it into the woods.
Start here
You’ll see a trail junction marked with a sign. Follow the arrow to the left toward Harris Butte. Heading right brings you down to the beach.
Head left
After the trail junction, you’ll climb a few switchbacks through the woods. There are some roots and rocks along the way but nothing intense. In no time, you’ll reach the fenced viewpoint at the top of the butte. Take a moment here to admire the incredible views of Harris Beach and the coastline to the north.
Views from Harris Butte
If you’re starting from the beach, look for the dirt trail on the east side of the main day-use parking lot. It will circle part of the base of the butte and end up at the trail junction mentioned above.
Beach access trails
Distance: Each about 0.4 miles out and back
Elevation: 50 feet
Difficulty: Easy
South Beach trailhead
As you drive through the park, you’ll pass two small roadside parking areas on the way to the main lot. One is near the park entrance and the other is across from the campground. Each is next to a short trail leading down to Harris Beach. These trails make it easy to access the southern part of the beach without clambering over too many rocks to get there. I wouldn’t say they are better or worse than the main beach access, just different perspectives.
Queen Anne's lace blooms along a beach access trail
Trail to Brookings
Distance: 0.6 miles out and back
Elevation: Minimal
Difficulty: Easy
The good news: an easy hiking trail connects Harris Beach State Park to downtown Brookings. The bad news: there’s nothing to do once you get there. The trail has lovely views of the south end of Harris Beach, making it worth ignoring Highway 101 on the other side. It ends without a real destination, although a determined person could continue through town to try out the local beer at Chetco Brewing Company, about 3 miles out and back. Look for the start of the trail near the park entrance next to the South Beach trailhead.
Wildlife
Birds
Pelicans flying over Harris Beach
Harris Beach State Park is an excellent place for bird-watching. Gulls are a sure thing. You’ll see them hopping along the beach, perched on sea stacks, and hanging out near the picnic area. I saw a heron on the beach two of the three days I visited, once wading in Harris Creek and once fishing in the tidepools.
Heron perches on a rock just offshore
In the summer, look for brown pelicans flying overhead in linear formations. Bring good binoculars to look for a wide variety of seabirds like cormorants, common murres, and black oystercatchers on the sea stacks. Spring and summer are nesting seasons and the best times for bird-watching. Although Goat Island is known for being a favorite of seabirds, I saw more of them on the smaller sea stack just in front of it, mostly cormorants.
This sea stack had the most birds
In late spring and early summer, look for tufted puffins nesting on Goat Island. Early mornings and late evenings are the best times to spot them since puffins spend most of the day out at sea fishing. Even in their nesting spots, they will be far away and hard to see from the beach. Bring binoculars or a telephoto lens to have a chance at it.
Seals, sea lions, and whales
You might see seals or sea lions bobbing around Harris Beach. Look for them in the water and on the rocky ledges of the sea stacks. Harbor seals nurse their pups in early summer, which is a good time to see them lounging near the beach.
Harris Beach is great for whale-watching during the grey whale winter and spring migrations. The best places to watch for whales are points of elevation where you can scan large areas of the ocean. The top of Harris Butte would be ideal. Mornings on calm days are usually the easiest times to see whales when there is less glare on the water or no large waves.
Tidepools
Low tide reveals barnacles, sea stars, and anemones
As soon as I saw all the craggy rocks around Harris Beach, I got excited about tidepools. After visiting at a medium tide, I came back the next day a little past sunrise on the advice of a tide table. The tide was around +1. Low, in other words, but not a rare event.
Sea stars on Harris Beach
Tidepools are one of the few things that tempt me to set an alarm for an ungodly hour while on vacation. It was worth it. Harris Beach has excellent intertidal animals. They encrust the bases of the sea stacks near the water. Waves recede to reveal clumps of orange and purple sea stars just below the surface. Some are prying open mussels to eat, too slowly to perceive the life and death struggle. Crabs skitter around the rocks while sculpins swim furtively in shallow pools on the shore. The more you look, the more you see.
Purple shore crab
Geology of Harris Beach
If you’re familiar with Oregon’s northern beaches, expect to find a much different geology on the south coast. The rock here has more in common with coastal northern California than Oregon. It’s older, more varied, and, for lack of a better word, messier. While the dramatic headlands of the north coast are mostly made of volcanic rock less than 20 million years old, those to the south are closer to 150 million years old and a mix of things, mostly sandstone.
Sea arch at Harris Beach
As the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate subducts under the North American plate, it pushes up a wedge of seabed in a less-than-delicate way. Rocks get uplifted, smashed together, and generally displaced. Then, rain, wind, and ocean waves wear away at the uplifted material. What remains are the irregular and often tortured-looking sea stacks and coastal bluffs. They are still in a state of flux, just on a geologic timescale. Harris Beach has beautiful and varied rocks in colors ranging from cream and orange swirls to dark gray to pale green. When in doubt, guess sandstone, but that’s certainly not the only rock here. A great example is the large knobby rock jutting up on the west side of the parking lot, an intrusive rhyolitic dyke.
Camping
Harris Beach State Park has a large, year-round campground with amenities like playgrounds, showers, and flush toilets. The sites include RV sites with full hookups, tent sites, and yurts. They are in a pretty wooded setting with easy access to the beach. You can book reservable sites up to six months in advance here.
The campground was fully booked when I visited the park, which looks like the norm in the summer based on a perusal of the reservation calendar. Campsite costs range from around $20-25/night (tent) to around $70/night (yurt).
The campground allows dogs. They must be on a leash when not in a tent or vehicle.
Harris Beach packing list
Sunscreen, even when it’s cloudy.
Camera
Layers, including a rain jacket. The weather changes quickly on the Oregon Coast. For most seasons, I’d suggest something water-resistant, lightweight, and with a little insulation like this jacket for women or men.
Bring a good pair of binoculars to look for wildlife.
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Parks nearby
Chetco Point
Bench overlooking Chetco Point
The best park in downtown Brookings is hidden behind a wastewater treatment plant. Trust me. Park at the plant’s visitor lot (free) and follow the trail around the facility. On the other side is Chetco Point, a small and stunning headland. The 0.7-mile out-and-back hiking trail leads to the end of the point where wildflowers bloom in spring and summer. A sign warns about dangerous conditions, which I would only worry about if you’re hiking with small children. There are drop-offs near the trail but they are easily avoided. Older kids would do fine. You can also get down to the beach next to the headland.
Samuel Boardman Corridor
Lone Ranch Beach
Just north of Brookings, the Samuel Boardman Corridor is one of the most incredible stretches of the Oregon Coast. This area is nothing but back-to-back beaches and viewpoints along an undeveloped coastline. Here are some highlights.
Easy beach stops:
Lone Ranch Beach
Whaleshead Beach
Hidden beach stops:
Secret Beach
China Beach
Awesome viewpoint stops:
Natural Bridges
Arch Rock
Cape Ferrelo
Getting there
Harris Beach State Park is directly off Highway 101 on the north end of Brookings. Coming from the north, look for the sign for the right turn into the park. From the south, it’ll be a left turn. There is a rest area across the highway.
The drive from Portland takes 6 hours. From San Francisco, it’s a little less than 7 hours.
Enjoy your trip to Harris Beach State Park!
With love,
Emma
Explore nearby
Visit the hidden and secret China Beach, only 15 minutes north of Brookings.
Hike to beautiful Secret Beach.
Head south to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.
Geology references:
Marli Miller’s Roadside Geology of Oregon.
State of Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries: https://pubs.oregon.gov/dogami/og/OBv37n04.pdf
