Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, Oregon

The Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor is a 12 mile linear park along the Oregon Coast. Just north of the California border and along Route 101, it is easily one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been to and one of the highlights of our cross country road trip. Oh, and guess what, it’s completely free.

Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor

We first found out about this park on Instagram. Some of our favorite photographers regularly share their work from this place. In a way, it was almost surreal to be there in person. Has that ever happened to you? Where maybe you’ll see or read about something and then you actually get to experience it? Sometimes it can lead to disappointment but not in this case. The Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor more than lived up to our expectations. In lots of ways it was even better in real life.

The park was named after the first Oregon Parks superintendent. We are so thankful for the vision that he and other park stewards had years ago that made this land available for us to visit.

The hidden experience

What I wish you could see in our photographs is the sound of the waves, the way the trail crunches underfoot and the joy we felt at every bend in the trail. Obviously, we were far from being among the first to discover this place but we did have that feeling of adventure that only comes from seeing amazing things and encountering few others (I think we ran into one other human being that morning).

Though the corridor itself is 12 miles long there are 27 miles of Oregon Coast Trail to hike or trail run. We highly recommend pulling over at Arch Rock and Natural Bridges as this is where many of our photographs were taken.

Behind the scenes

We got up in the dark for this photo shoot, skipped our daily run, skipped coffee, skipped breakfast and drove south until we reached the Samuel H. Boardman Scenic State Corridor. We’d driven north through the corridor a few weeks before we took these photos. That first pass through this area was a mixture of scouting out the location and being frustrated at not getting the shots we wanted. The second time through we had a better idea of what we wanted to shoot and where to be at first light. As with most photographers, we’re itching to get back and re-shoot certain areas and try to improve our images. To learn more about the gear we shot with, head on over HERE.

Have you been here?

If so, what’d you think? If you’ll be visiting the Oregon Coast soon, we’d love to see and hear about your trip!

Authentic Asheville is a team of two. We are freelance writers, photographers and web designers. Please contact us if you’re interested in working together.