Golden Hour Low Tide Photography Calendar 2026: La Push, Garibaldi, Monterey, La Jolla

The best golden-hour low tide left in 2026 on the West Coast is Wednesday, August 12 at La Push, WA (NOAA station 9442396): a −2.31 ft low at 6:58 AM, 48 minutes after sunrise, scoring 90 of 100. It anchors the year's final dawn run, August 10–13 — and this time the light belongs to the north. Every window in the current 120-day rankings that scores Good or better falls in those four mornings at La Push or Garibaldi; at Monterey and La Jolla the same lows now arrive before sunrise.

What counts as a golden-hour low tide?

Two clocks have to agree. The tide clock decides how much reef and wet sand you get; the sun clock decides whether the light on it is worth carrying a tripod for. For each station Tidewindow crosses NOAA's harmonic tide predictions with the sun's computed position and keeps the windows where a deep low lands near sunrise or sunset. Each window carries two solar numbers alongside its 0–100 score: the sun's azimuth at the moment of the low, and the offset in minutes between the low and the nearest sunrise or sunset (negative means the sun is below the horizon at the low). The golden-hour tool computes this live for every station we track; the formulas, including the scoring, are on the methodology page.

The mechanism explains the whole calendar. The morning low arrives roughly 30–60 minutes later each day — at La Push it steps 5:23, 6:13, 6:58, 7:39 AM over August 10–13 — while August sunrise barely moves. Each spring-tide run therefore crosses dawn once or twice, and those crossing mornings, deep water out and sun just up, are what this page collects.

Which mornings top the current list?

One best window per station, ranked by score:

Computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA predictions at stations 9442396, 9437540, 9413450, and 9410230, next 120 days. "Low vs. sun edge" is minutes between the low and the nearest sunrise or sunset; positive means the sun is up.

Read down the table and the season's geography is plain. In July the whole coast crossed dawn together; the August run crosses it only in the north. La Push and Garibaldi still put deep water under new light — both stations' lows on the 12th land about 50 minutes into the day. Monterey and La Jolla now bottom out roughly an hour and a quarter before sunrise: by the time the sun clears the horizon, the water is already well up the beach. The southern half of this calendar has, for 2026, run out of light.

What does the azimuth number tell you?

Azimuth is a compass bearing for the sun. NOAA's solar glossary defines it as "measured clockwise from true north to the point on the horizon directly below the object" — so 0° is north, 90° east, 180° south, 270° west. Every morning window in this calendar puts the sun between 57° and 83°: northeast to east, low over the land.

Stand facing the Pacific and that sun is behind you. Practically:

• Front light comes free. Sea stacks and exposed reef get warm, even light; exposures are easy; keep your own long shadow out of frame.
• Shadows point at the water. A shadow falls opposite the azimuth — subtract 180° and these windows throw shadows toward 237°–263°, southwest to west: raking lines aimed at the surf, a gift for foregrounds.
• Sidelight means turning parallel to the shore. Shooting along the beach puts that 57–83° sun on your shoulder and pulls texture out of ripples and rock.
• Backlight is still barely on the menu. Two sunset-side windows do crack the lists now — La Push on August 14 (azimuth 292°, sun setting behind the sea stacks) and La Jolla on September 14 (268°) — but both are Skip-band: +0.72 ft and +0.76 ft lows leave almost no beach under the silhouette. Nothing sun-behind-the-water scores Good or better in the next 120 days.

The station calendars

All six top-ranked windows per station follow. "Low vs. sun edge" is minutes from the predicted low to the nearest sunrise or sunset; negative lows happen in twilight. Evening windows are marked.

La Push, WA (NOAA station 9442396)

Computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA station 9442396 predictions.

August 11 is the dawn-crosser — the −2.18 ft low lands 4 minutes after sunrise, the closest any remaining 2026 window comes to the sun-just-up moment — while the 12th and 13th trade that precision for depth and a longer, brighter morning. All three starts are dark: the 12th's window opens at 4:30 AM. This entry comes with homework. Olympic National Park says to "always carry a tide table, topographic map, and keep track of the time whenever hiking along Olympic's coast," and warns that several points along the coast are only passable at lower tides. One access fact matters more than any of it this year: the park's conditions page states "Mora Road is closed to all traffic for construction from July 8–Oct. 15, 2026," and Rialto Beach is not accessible via Mora Road during that period — so the classic Hole-in-the-Wall shoot is off the table for this run. The place to carry the tripod is Second Beach, a 0.7-mile forest trail off La Push Road; our La Push guide leads with the closure and covers the trail and the sea stacks.

Garibaldi, OR (NOAA station 9437540)

Computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA station 9437540 predictions.

Same rhythm as La Push, one notch shallower: Tuesday the 11th crosses sunrise by 6 minutes, Wednesday the 12th brings the depth (−1.77 ft). The late-August run is the season's fade heard in numbers — the 25th lands on exactly 0.00 ft, the average low, and earns a Skip. If you get one Garibaldi morning, make it the 11th or 12th.

Monterey, CA (NOAA station 9413450)

Computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA station 9413450 predictions.

Monterey shows the trade the south now faces: depth or light, not both. The deepest low in this list (−1.11 ft on the 12th) sits 76 minutes before sunrise; the low that lands right at the sun's edge (the 14th, −1 minute) has shed two-thirds of that depth; and by the weekend, when the light is easy, the water barely dips below average. Nothing here cracks Good — but Monterey's calendar is dormant, not done. Past this 120-day horizon, late December flips the station to the sunset side with real depth: −1.73 ft at 4:19 PM on December 23 and −1.83 ft at 5:06 PM on December 24, both scoring 80 (Great).

La Jolla, CA (NOAA station 9410230)

Computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA station 9410230 predictions.

One Fair window and five Skips: La Jolla's only remaining sub-zero overlap (−0.50 ft on August 14) bottoms out 74 minutes before sunrise, and there is no honest light-with-water pick left — the September 14 evening entry puts the sun over the ocean at 268°, silhouette geometry at last, but with a +0.76 ft low there is little foreground to silhouette. The consolation is underfoot rather than underwater: observers logged 141 Opalescent Nudibranchs within 5 km of the station in the last 60 days, which is macro season by any definition. La Jolla's real return to this calendar comes with winter's afternoon lows — the king tides page has those dates.

The season is closing — here is the arithmetic

The next 120 days of predictions run through late November, yet every Good-or-better window lands August 10–13. The monthly counts at La Push explain it: 15 daylight minus tides remain in August (from the 2nd), then 6 in September, 3 in October (computed 2026-08-02 from NOAA station 9442396 predictions). Deep lows return in November and December — −1.84 ft on November 24, −1.97 ft on December 23 — but on the sunset side of the day, with barely half an hour of their windows in daylight. When the deep lows thin out and drift away from the sun's edges, the overlap scores sink with them.

The same August 10–13 spring cycle, incidentally, is what drives the year's last Exceptional tidepooling run in Puget Sound — if the camera is optional, the Puget Sound August 8–13 roundup covers that side of the water day by day.

How early should you arrive?

An hour before the low is the standard answer — La Push's August 12 arrive-by is 5:58 AM for the 6:58 AM low — but photographers have a better one: the window's opening time. That same window opens at 4:30 AM, which buys you blue hour and the low still falling. Pull any station's upcoming windows, with arrive-by times and these sun offsets, from the golden-hour tool. The tide does the composition twice a month. August 10–13 is the last time this year it shows up at dawn.