Oregon's last deep dawn minus-tide run of 2026 arrives August 11-14, and it peaks everywhere on Wednesday, August 12: −1.74 ft at Port Orford (NOAA 9431647), −1.72 ft at Charleston (9432780), −1.91 ft at Newport (9435380), and −1.77 ft at Garibaldi (9437540), the Haystack Rock reference station. After that the deep water moves to December dusk — and splits the coast at Newport, where summer beats winter by three thousandths of a foot.
Oregon's four tidepool stations
"Best tide pools in Oregon" lists tend to name the same shores — Haystack Rock, Yaquina Head, Cape Arago — as if one tide table covers 300 miles of coast. It doesn't. The classic sites cluster around four NOAA reference stations, and the deepest daylight water left in 2026 doesn't even land in the same season at all of them:
| Shore | Reference station | NOAA id | Deepest remaining 2026 daylight low | When it lands | Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port Orford (Battle Rock, Rocky Point) | Port Orford | 9431647 | −2.21 ft | Dec 24, 6:14 PM | Open shore |
| Charleston (Sunset Bay, Cape Arago) | Charleston | 9432780 | −2.05 ft | Dec 24, 6:30 PM | State park day-use, parking permit |
| Newport (Yaquina Head, Otter Rock) | Newport (South Beach) | 9435380 | −1.91 ft | Aug 12, 6:46 AM | Yaquina Head gate opens 8 AM; Otter Rock open |
| Cannon Beach (Haystack Rock) | Garibaldi (Tillamook Bay) | 9437540 | −1.77 ft | Aug 12, 7:04 AM | Open beach, Marine Garden rules |
Computed 2026-07-19 from NOAA station 9431647, 9432780, 9435380, and 9437540 predictions. Access notes per BLM, Oregon State Parks, and the Haystack Rock Awareness Program, verified 2026-07-19. Haystack Rock sits about 35 minutes north of its reference station, so treat Cannon Beach clock times as close rather than exact.
Read down the "when it lands" column: the southern half of the coast saves its deepest daylight water for Christmas week at dusk, while the northern half already peaks at dawn on August 12. The crossover sits almost exactly at Newport — more on that below.
August 11-14: the last deep dawn run of 2026
Four stations, four mornings, one falling curve. Every row of this table comes from the same lunar alignment, arriving from the south:
| Date | Day | Port Orford (9431647) | Charleston (9432780) | Newport (9435380) | Garibaldi (9437540) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 11 | Tue | −1.72 ft, 5:34 AM | −1.65 ft, 5:49 AM | −1.76 ft, 6:00 AM | −1.61 ft, 6:18 AM |
| Aug 12 | Wed | −1.74 ft, 6:19 AM | −1.72 ft, 6:35 AM | −1.91 ft, 6:46 AM | −1.77 ft, 7:04 AM |
| Aug 13 | Thu | −1.51 ft, 7:00 AM | −1.53 ft, 7:16 AM | −1.79 ft, 7:28 AM | −1.66 ft, 7:47 AM |
| Aug 14 | Fri | −1.04 ft, 7:38 AM | −1.10 ft, 7:55 AM | −1.38 ft, 8:06 AM | −1.29 ft, 8:27 AM |
Computed 2026-07-19 from NOAA station predictions. Scores for the August 12 windows run 80 (Port Orford) to 88 (Newport) — the best remaining of the year at every station.
On August 12 the low sweeps the coast south to north in 45 minutes: Port Orford at 6:19 AM, Charleston at 6:35, Newport at 6:46, Garibaldi at 7:04. In summer that lag works in the north's favor — the later the low, the more of its window falls after sunrise, which is why Garibaldi's 7:04 AM low catches 197 daylight minutes to Port Orford's 149. Why the Pacific's summer lows come at dawn explains the mechanism.
It's a weekday event. The run is Tuesday through Friday; by Saturday, August 15 the depths fade to −0.67 ft at Garibaldi and −0.71 ft at Newport — still Good-band mornings, no longer the main event. If you can't wait until August, July 29 through August 1 runs a shallower warmup, topping out at −0.94 ft at Newport on Friday, July 31 at 8:15 AM.
One gate changes the itinerary. Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area — home of Cobble Beach, Newport's marquee tidepool ground — opens at 8:00 AM (the BLM's summer schedule through Labor Day weekend is 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Friday-Sunday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday-Thursday, $7 per vehicle for a 3-day pass). All three deep lows of the run at Newport — 6:00, 6:46, and 7:28 AM — bottom out before the gate opens, and the BLM warns that seabird nesting season "may result in limited or no access to Cobble Beach, the tidepools" through September regardless. The dawn run at Newport therefore belongs to Otter Rock's Marine Gardens, an open shore on the same station; only Friday's 8:06 AM low, six minutes after opening, nearly fits the gate. Every other shore in the table above is open at dawn.
The coast splits at Newport
At every Washington station we compute, 2026's deepest daylight low came in July at dawn. In California it comes on Christmas Eve in the afternoon. Oregon is the seam between those two regimes, and in 2026 the seam runs through Newport. Here is the deepest daylight low of the king-tide season (late October 2026 through March 2027) at each station:
| Station | Deepest king-season daylight low | When it lands | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Port Orford (9431647) | −2.21 ft | Dec 24, 6:14 PM | 65 |
| Charleston (9432780) | −2.05 ft | Dec 24, 6:30 PM | 59 |
| Newport (9435380) | −1.91 ft | Dec 23, 5:53 PM | 61 |
| Garibaldi (9437540) | −1.66 ft | Jan 21, 5:59 PM | 57 |
Computed 2026-07-19 from NOAA station predictions. The 2026-2027 king tide calendar covers the high-water end of the same alignments.
The column is a staircase: winter's deep water fades as you go north. At Port Orford, Christmas Eve beats the August run by nearly half a foot (−2.21 vs −1.74). At Charleston the winter margin is a third of a foot. At Newport it vanishes — August 12's −1.913 ft against December 23's −1.910 ft, a difference of 0.003 ft, about a millimeter of water. And at Garibaldi the staircase inverts: its best king-season low, −1.66 ft on January 21, 2027, never catches its August 12 dawn low of −1.77 ft. South of Newport, plan for winter; north of it, August 12 is the year's floor, full stop.
The winter numbers come with an honest catch: in the December run, the low itself lands after dark at every station. December 23 at Port Orford is the shape of the thing — a −2.07 ft low at 5:26 PM, but the window opens at 2:55 PM with 113 daylight minutes, so the light runs out around 4:48 PM and you work the falling tide, not the low. The one Great-band exception on the whole coast comes January 21, 2027 at Port Orford: −1.89 ft at 5:12 PM with 152 daylight minutes (light to about 5:17 PM), score 76 — the king season's single best usable window in Oregon.
Which Oregon shore should you pick?
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Cannon Beach / Haystack Rock. The open-beach option: no gate, no fee, walk out at dawn. It is also an Oregon Marine Garden — "the harvesting of invertebrates and marine aquatic vegetation is strictly prohibited" per the Haystack Rock Awareness Program — with the intertidal only fully open on a real minus tide. The Haystack Rock windows guide has the full 2026 calendar and the station-distance caveat.
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Newport. Two shores, one station, opposite clocks: gated Yaquina Head for late-morning lows, open Otter Rock — Oregon's smallest marine reserve at 1.2 square miles, "no take of animals or seaweeds" — for the dawn runs. The deepest August water on the coast, and the millimeter-close photo finish above.
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Charleston. Sunset Bay and Cape Arago, open for day use year round with a parking permit. Oregon State Parks calls the South Cove tidepools at Cape Arago "superior" and asks that you enjoy them "with your eyes only." The south coast's winter depth without the south coast's drive.
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Port Orford. The far south: Battle Rock Beach, Rocky Point, and Agate Beach, and the deepest daylight water in Oregon this king season (−2.21 ft on Christmas Eve). The rocks south of Battle Rock run to the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve boundary — look-only ground since 2012.
Every window in this article, day by day, lives on the station pages: Garibaldi, Newport, Charleston, and Port Orford — the August calendar for Newport has the dawn run in full. The Oregon beaches hub collects all four, and the Oregon minus-tide calendar runs the whole year in one table.
How to work a window
Arrive an hour before the low and follow the water out — every "arrive by" time on the station pages is computed exactly that way. Wear closed-toe shoes with grip, and give the wildlife its distance; the BLM's rule at Yaquina Head is "stay well away from wildlife and leave rocks, plants, and shells in place," and it travels well. Oregon State Parks' standing advice for this coast: "keep your eyes on the ocean and stay aware of changing tides, sneaker waves, and drift logs."
To turn any date here into a plan, drop the station and day into the tide-window finder, scan the whole season on the year heatmap, or let the trip picker find multi-day runs automatically. The full method — arrive-by math, what to bring, how to read the score — is in how to plan a tidepooling trip around minus tides.
These are tide predictions, not observations: actual water levels vary with wind, swell, and barometric pressure, so treat the windows as a plan and watch the real water once you're there. Every number above is computed from NOAA station predictions; the methodology explains exactly how.