45.8811° N, 123.9678° W · CANNON BEACH, OR

Haystack Rock, actually explained.

One of the most photographed rocks on earth, and most of what gets repeated about it online is half right. Height, age, wildlife, tide rules, and the Goonies scene people keep getting wrong. All of it sourced at the bottom of the page, not scraped.

What it actually is

Haystack Rock is a 235-foot basalt sea stack sitting just off the beach in Cannon Beach, on the northern Oregon coast. It's part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and the tide pools around its base are a protected “Marine Garden.” That's not a suggestion: climbing above the barnacle line is illegal, and so is taking anything, rock, shell, animal, from within 300 yards of it. Roughly 200,000 people show up to see it every year, most of them between June and August.

How it got here

The rock is leftover lava. Somewhere between 15 and 17 million years ago, during the Miocene, massive basalt flows broke out of vents in eastern Oregon and rode the ancestral Columbia River drainage all the way to the coast, part of the same Columbia River Basalt Group that carved much of the Columbia River Gorge. Where the lava met the ocean and cooled, it left behind a chain of sea stacks. Haystack Rock was originally attached to the headland; millions of years of wave action eventually cut it loose.

Who lives there

From roughly May through August, Haystack Rock hosts one of Oregon's largest breeding colonies of tufted puffins, best spotted in the two hours after sunrise or before sunset. The population has dropped hard, more than 95% across Oregon and Washington since the mid-1990s, so what you're looking at is rarer than it used to be. Down at the base, the tide pools run thick with ochre sea stars, giant green anemones, chitons, and hermit crabs, all protected under the Marine Garden designation. Look, don't touch. In 2023 a cougar somehow made its way out onto the rock, which made national news and is a genuinely good read (linked below).

Actually visiting

Haystack Rock is only fully walkable to at low tide. Check a real tide chart before you go, not vibes (linked below). From mid-February through November, trained volunteers from the Haystack Rock Awareness Program are stationed on the beach during daytime low tides and will answer more questions than you knew you had. Bring shoes you don't mind getting wet.

The Goonies thing

Yes, Haystack Rock is in The Goonies. It's in the background of the four-wheel-drive chase scene along the beach. What it is not is the site of the final treasure and reunion scene. That was shot down in Northern California, at Goat Rock Beach on the Sonoma Coast. A lot of the internet gets this wrong. Now you don't have to.

While you're there

Ecola State Park sits about 3 miles north: nine miles of coastline, old-growth forest, and a trail down to Indian Beach worth the walk. The Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce keeps a real directory of local restaurants, shops, and places to stay, not an algorithm-generated list. Both linked below.