Across the dunes to the ocean

As we drove back to the campground on Tuesday from our visit in old town Florence, we decided that we should take advantage of the still sunny day and visit the dunes that are just west and south of our campground. We drove into the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and stopped at one of the beach access points...

Hiking up the dune...

... at least it isn't as tall as the Cinder Dome that we hiked in Lassen (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/06/hiking-out-around-butte-lake-campground.html).

View of the Pacific Ocean -- it isn't obvious from this picture, but we were a ways up from the beach... and debating if we wanted to walk down because that would mean a subsequent trek up!

A look back toward the east where the Jeep was parked - and across the river to where the town of Florence is located.

Looking out at the beach

Four young men (I would have called them "boys", but they drove up in a car, so at least one of them was 16, I guess!) came soon after we arrived - they also did not walk down to the beach...

... but instead had sand boards (?) to slide down the hill:

Video 1: https://youtu.be/xfzp22-lXYU

Video 2: https://youtu.be/a_ZE_oEw4Oc 

(for some reason, embedded videos seem to be a problem at times within the blog)

looking south...

...looking north...

... looking west -- there was a family enjoying the whole beach all to themselves.

We enjoyed sitting up on top of the dunes, mostly out of the wind, enjoying the view and the sun.

Walking back down the dune on the east side and looking a bit south.