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Photographers tempt danger for great images on Ore. Coast

Views from Cape Disappointment State Park on Friday, found ocean surf half as big and rough as the day before. But still very impressive.

ILWACO, Wash. – Photographers were back to Cape Disappointment State Park on Friday, to find ocean surf half as big and rough as the day before, but still very impressive.

A high surf advisory ran into the late afternoon, but it didn’t keep visitors from climbing up on a wall of logs tossed like toothpicks onto the jetty on Thursday, when a big storm surge combined to make for the biggest, and in some cases the most damaging surf in at least a few years.

Shaun Peterson works as an electrician, but his passion is his professional photography. Shaun was on the coast with at least a dozen others on Thursday, when high seas and big waves made the area a dangerous place to be. Everyone, including Shaun had to scurry back to avoid being crushed by logs moved by the water.

“We saw the waves higher than us, so once we saw that we knew… everybody got out and one guy fell and another lady got knocked over, but for the most part pretty unscathed,“ said Peterson.

Peterson survived and continued on his tour of the coast, capturing an amazing moment in time, as enormous waves crashed the old Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.

“The tide was coming in and the waves were going higher than the lighthouse by hundreds of feet… I just stayed there and kept shooting and it turned out to be a pretty good experience, too,” said Peterson.

Peterson took the lighthouse photo from the safety of Ecola State Park near Seaside.

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