Yaquina Estuary Hike

Overview

Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center sits on low ground near the NOAA Marine Operations Center and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. While the exhibits in the Visitor Center here do not match those of the Aquarium, they do complement them and entry is free. In addition, a short interpretive trail leads around the shore and enlightens the visitor on the importance of estuaries and the teeming life forms that inhabit them. Yaquina Bay is essentially a drowned river mouth and the second-largest such ecosystem on the Oregon Coast. Time your visit for low tide, when the mud flats will host flocks of hungry shore birds. The trail begins at a rock jetty at the far end of the parking lot for the Marine Science Center. Check out the map of the estuary here. Get views across the water to the Newport Bayfront and back to the Yaquina Bay Bridge. The paved tread leads off to the right and crosses a footbridge before avoiding a short washed out area at a cobble beach. A sign here explains the Yaquina Estuary system. Shrubby willow, wax-myrtle, shore pine and Sitka spruce dot the open area. The paved trail resumes, always a few yards from the beach and heads in along King Slough. At a shelter, there’s an interpretive panel on the mud flats. In season, people may be clamming here when the tide is out, a time when shorebirds, especially whimbrels and sandpipers, will also be foraging on the flats. At a junction, keep left (Going right takes you into the Marine Science Center complex) and pass a willow thicket. Walk by a picnic table and reach a wonderful elevated boardwalk over a swampy arm of the estuary vegetated by saltgrass, glasswort, plantain and owl clover. After the boardwalk and the last information signs, the trail hits a road with No Trespassing on the left and the Marine Science Center complex on the right. You can return along the Estuary Trail or go right and then left on 25th Street to walk out to the paved Tsunami Evacuation Trail which runs alongside OSU Drive to make a loop back to the Hatfield

Trail Stats

Photos

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400px-YaquinaEstuaryMap

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250px-YaquinaEstuary2

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