Sunset Bay State Park is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. Administered by the

Oregon Parks and Recreation Department The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD), officially known (in state law) as the State Parks and Recreation Department, is the government agency of the U.S. state of Oregon which operates its system of state parks. In addition, it has pr ...

, it is about south of

Cape Arago Light The Cape Arago Lighthouse (formerly known as Cape Gregory Lighthouse) is a lighthouse located in Charleston, Oregon, Charleston, Oregon. It is located north of Cape Arago State Park, Cape Arago. History Starting in the mid-19th century, Coos ...

house and outside the town of Charleston on

Coos Bay Coos Bay (Hanis language, Coos language: Atsixiis or Hanisich) is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon sta ...

. The park offers a crescent shaped beach,

tide pools A tide pool or rock pool is a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky intertidal shore. These pools typically range from a few inches to a few feet deep and a few feet across. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only ...

, hiking trails and a year-round campground. The park is one of three along the Cape Arago Highway, which runs along the Pacific Ocean west of

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

. Sunset Bay State Park is about north of

Shore Acres State Park Shore Acres State Park is a state park south of Coos Bay in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is one of three state parks along the Cape Arago Highway, which runs along the Pacific Ocean west of U.S. Route 101. Sunset Bay State Park is about nor ...

and about north of

Cape Arago State Park Cape Arago State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Oregon, administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Cape Arago is north of Bandon and 15 miles southwest of Coos Bay on Cape Arago Highway in Coos County. History In 1 ...

. A hiking trail links Sunset Bay to Shore Acres. Land for the park was acquired in stages through 1984. Coos County donated the original tract to the state in 1948. In 1954, Ralph Barker donated a parcel with a water supply. The

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

later added tracts through a grant to the state, which also bought, exchanged, or otherwise acquired land from private owners. The combined size of the parcels is about . Sunset Bay is home to one of Oregon's

ghost forest Ghost forests are areas of dead trees in former forests, typically in coastal regions where Sea level rise, rising sea levels or tectonic shifts have altered the height of a land mass. Forests located near the coast or estuary, estuaries may also ...

s, created by an earthquake on the

Cascadia subduction zone The Cascadia subduction zone is a convergent plate boundary, about off the Pacific coast of North America, that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is capable of producing 9.0+ m ...

that dropped the shoreline about 1,200 years ago. The shoreline contains stumps of drowned

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

trees.

Climate

Located on the

Oregon Coast The Oregon Coast is a coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to its west and the Oregon Coast Range to the east, and stretches approximately from the California state border in the south to the Columbia ...

, Sunset Bay State Park has a mild

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen climate classification, Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of co ...

(''Cfb''), with minimal temperature variation throughout the year. As is typical of coastal locations in Oregon, Sunset Bay is very wet, with nearly of annual precipitation, the vast majority of it falling between the months of October and May. Summers are dry, but still cool, partly-to-mostly cloudy and foggy. Temperatures below or above are uncommon, while snowfall is fairly rare. The record high temperature at Sunset Bay State Park is , which was observed on both October 10, 1991 and February 8, 2016, while the record low is , which was observed on December 21, 1990.

References

External links

* http://www.yelp.com/biz/sunset-bay-state-park-charleston Parks in Coos County, Oregon State parks of Oregon {{CoosCountyOR-geo-stub

Climate

See also

References

External links