This was my second time camping at Sunset Bay in the winter. Located near Coos Bay, this campground provides easy access to trails with many scenic viewpoints – perfect for a trip focused on photography.

Trip planning

• Learn more about Sunset Bay State Park campground

Since our goal was take photos at sunrise and sunset, we didn’t do any longer hikes. Instead, we got up early and hiked in the dark to viewpoints that we scouted the night before so we could shoot at sunrise. We did the same at night, returning to camp in the dark after sunset.

We didn’t realize that there was a tsunami warning while we were at the coast shooting photos. There’s no cell service at camp, but there is on the trail in between and we found out about the warning while hiking back to camp. The waves were large, but didn’t seem much different than a high tide with waves crashing against the rocks on the shoreline. Thankfully, there wasn’t any damage in the area and we were fine.

camping in our cars to stay warm and dry

Sunset Bay beach

Cape Arago lighthouse

coastal forest

sunset at Shore Acres

sunrise at Sunset Bay