Neahkahnie Mountain on the Oregon coast has been searched repeatedly for buried treasure.
The Oregon coast is lined with cozy clapboard getaways, but the tranquil image of surf and sun is undermined by a small brochure in our motel room: “Tsunami Evacuation Map” reads the loud type against a bright yellow background. “If you feel an earthquake … DUCK, COVER AND HOLD,” it warns, like Cold War instructions for a nuclear attack.
The brochure includes a map of “assembly areas” to run for after you get out of your defensive crouch. Run like hell up hill: “A tsunami may be coming in a few minutes.” Have a nice weekend.
It’s a fitting reminder that this coast — beautiful as it is and dotted with tourist villages, parks, and scenic overviews — features a kind of rough trade too: huge storms, earthquakes, tidal waves, giant rocks, and killer waves. They don’t call the stretch on either side of the Columbia River the “graveyard of the Pacific” for nothing.
I recently stayed with a friend in Manzanita, 25 miles north of Tillamook and one block from miles of sandy beach. There are a dozen documented wrecks just off this shoreline, dating from the late 17th century to the early 20th. Those disasters are one reason I’m here.
