Yaquina Head & Otter Rock Tide Pools 2026: Newport's Best Low-Tide Days

Newport's tidepool year has moved to dusk. The deepest qualifying low left in 2026 at NOAA station 9435380 is −1.91 ft MLLW at 5:53 PM on Wednesday, December 23 — but daylight in that window ends around 4:40 PM, so the usable light falls on the falling tide, not the low itself. Of the eight deepest windows remaining, only Monday, December 21's −0.69 ft low at 4:15 PM arrives before dark.

Newport's two tidepool grounds sit a few miles apart on the coast north of town and obey different clocks. Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area is federal land with an entrance station, posted hours, and the tidepools of Cobble Beach. Otter Rock's Marine Gardens, in the lee of Devils Punchbowl State Natural Area, is an open shore inside Oregon's smallest marine reserve. The reference for both is the tide station at South Beach, NOAA 9435380 — and from October onward, its calendar hands both shores the same assignment: work the last of the afternoon light while the tide is still falling.

When is the lowest tide at Newport for the rest of 2026?

Here are the eight deepest remaining windows of 2026 that qualify as daylight windows — meaning at least 30 minutes of the modeled low-tide window overlaps daylight, not that the low itself is in daylight. That distinction now does all the work: in seven of the eight, the light runs out before the water does.

Computed 2026-10-09 from NOAA station 9435380 predictions, MLLW. "Daylight ends" is derived from each window's start time plus its daylight minutes, rounded with the window times; treat it as approximate. Scores (0–100) weigh tide depth and daylight together.

Read the table the honest way. December 23 is the deepest water left in the year — a genuine −1.9 ft tide — but by the time the low arrives at 5:53 PM, the shore has been dark for more than an hour. What that window actually offers is the stretch from 3:40 to about 4:40 PM, when the tide is dropping hard through an already-low afternoon. The same logic applies to November 24 and December 22. The one exception is December 21: a modest −0.69 ft, but the low itself lands at 4:15 PM with roughly twenty-five minutes of light to spare — the only remaining date in the table where you can stand at the turn of the tide and still see it.

The weekend options are late October: Sunday the 25th (−0.79 ft, light until about 6:15 PM) and, for anyone flexible about a Monday, the 26th, which is deeper at −1.37 ft but gives up its low a full hour after dark.

The summer that was: July's −2.5 ft run and the August dawn series

This guide launched on July 17, 2026, built around the morning season. For the record — and because the numbers still explain how this coast works — here is what it covered, kept as history.

The deepest daylight-qualifying lows of the July–December period were not in August at all. They came in the July 13–16 run, which this guide missed by two days: −2.23 ft (Jul 13), −2.52 ft (Jul 14), −2.52 ft (Jul 15, the period's deepest at 7:50 AM), and −2.23 ft (Jul 16), every one scoring 90. An earlier version of this page called August 12's −1.91 ft "the year's deepest daylight low"; it was the deepest remaining when the page was written, and this correction scopes it properly against the full July–December fact sheets.

The original rankings, computed 2026-07-17, of what then remained:

August 12 against December 23 was a photo finish — −1.913 ft versus −1.910 ft, about a millimeter of water — and the calendar settled what the depth couldn't: August's low came half an hour after sunrise with the whole morning ahead of it; December's comes after dark. Same water, one usable at the low, one not. That is the entire reason the score exists.

The near-term windows that version tracked, also computed 2026-07-17:

The August 11–14 series was the last real dawn run of the year, and it played out as written: deep water at alarm-clock hours, with the 12th the pick of the run. If you want to know why every deep summer low on this coast is an early one, the dawn-lows guide unpacks the mechanics; the Oregon coast minus-tide calendar puts Newport beside Garibaldi, Charleston, and Port Orford month by month.

Yaquina Head: the gate math has flipped

Cobble Beach is the marquee tidepool ground at Yaquina Head — the BLM's seasonal-access note simply calls it "Cobble Beach, the tidepools" — and it lives behind an entrance station. The BLM's posted schedule, re-checked October 9, 2026: 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday–Thursday and 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM Friday–Sunday, closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. The summer 8:00 PM closing is over. A personal vehicle pass is $7 for 3 days ($3 for a motorcycle, $15 for 12 months), and bicyclists and walkers get free 1-day passes.

In summer, the gate was the villain: all three deep August lows landed before the 8:00 AM opening, so the dawn run belonged to Otter Rock. The dusk season inverts the problem. Every daylight slice in the table above falls inside posted gate hours — on December 21, the whole event does, low included, with the gate open until 6:00 PM. What the gate can't give you is light: on the deep late-December dates the lows arrive within the posted hours but after dark, and the tidepools are not a place to be navigating by phone flashlight. Note also that December 23's low at 5:53 PM sits seven minutes before a 6:00 PM closing — that is a fact about two clocks, not an assurance there's a sensible visit in it.

Two more things the BLM wants you to know. Seasonal wildlife protection can close the main event: "Harbor seal pupping season from mid-May to mid-June and seabird nesting season from May through September may result in limited or no access to Cobble Beach, the tidepools, and other locations with active nests" — check access at the entrance station or interpretive center (open 10 AM–4 PM daily) before planning around it. And the rules on the rock are look-only: "Stay well away from wildlife and leave rocks, plants, and shells in place." Pets are not allowed in the Cobble Beach tide pools.

Otter Rock: the Marine Gardens and the punchbowl

Devils Punchbowl State Natural Area, at Otter Rock off US 101 north of Newport, is best known for its namesake — Oregon State Parks describes water that "slams with a thundering roar into a hollow rock formation shaped like a huge punch bowl," a show that peaks in exactly the big-swell winter conditions now arriving. The tidepooling is the quieter headline. The park's own advice: "Don't forget to explore the tidepools on the north side of the punch bowl!" That rocky cove is the Marine Gardens, and the Otter Rock Marine Reserve — Oregon's smallest at 1.2 square miles, with harvest restrictions since January 1, 2012 — is "accessed through the Devils Punchbowl State Natural Area," per the state's marine reserves program, which adds: "At the north end of the marine reserve you'll find extensive rocky intertidal habitats along the shore." Its rule is five words long: "No take of animals or seaweeds."

Practicalities, re-checked October 9, 2026: a day-use parking permit is required (1-day permits sold on site), and the park's standing advisory is blunt — "Parking is limited and is only allowed in parking stalls. Please respect the private property surrounding the park." The park also lists its restrooms as closed for repairs (advisory effective August 24, 2026), so plan accordingly. The shore has no gate and no opening time; on the dusk dates above, the constraint at Otter Rock is sunset alone.

What you'll find in the pools

In the 60 days before October 9, 2026, the most-reported marine animals within a few kilometers of the station were still led by nudibranchs, but the clean sweep of summer has broken up. The Horned Nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis) leads by a wide margin with 18 observations, followed by the Branched Dendronotid (Dendronotus venustus), the Northern Leopard Dorid (Diaulula odonoghuei), the Monterey Dorid (Doris montereyensis), and — the autumn newcomers to the list — the Striped Dogwinkle (Nucella ostrina), the Gumboot Chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri), and the Spiny Scallop (Chlamys hastata), alongside the Nanaimo Dorid (Acanthodoris nanaimoensis), Opalescent Nudibranch (Hermissenda opalescens), and White-and-orange-tipped Nudibranch (Antiopella fusca). Finds this small and this soft are what the deep lows are for — and why the no-take rules matter.

Species reflect recent iNaturalist observations near the station (CC BY-NC, © the individual observers), including divers' reports from deeper water; NOAA is the tide-prediction data source. What you actually see on the rocks depends on the day.

How to work a dusk window

The historical summer table's “Arrive by” column subtracts one hour from the predicted low; it is not an arrival plan for these winter dusk dates. On December 23 that offset is 4:53 PM, already after the roughly 4:40 PM daylight end; on November 24 it is 5:04 PM, after roughly 4:41 PM. Plan from the daylight overlap instead, allowing enough time for the access and return walk to be safely off the tidal rocks before daylight ends or the site closes, whichever comes first. The rounded daylight end is not a departure deadline: build in a return margin, and skip the tidepool visit if there isn't enough light and safe access. Do not wait for an after-dark low.

These are predictions, not observations; check current access, weather, surf and tides on the day, and leave earlier if conditions threaten your return route. The BLM's Yaquina Head safety guidance warns about high surf and sneaker waves, and advises: “Wear non-slip, close-toed shoes in tide pools and on lighthouse tours.”

One honesty note: station 9435380 sits at South Beach, inside Yaquina Bay, and its predictions are the standard reference for this stretch of coast. But Yaquina Head and Otter Rock are open-coast shores a few miles north, so the exact minute of low water on those shelves can differ a little from the table.

Into king tide season

The dusk pattern runs straight through the winter. Among the five deepest daylight-qualifying lows of king season (October 2026–March 2027) at this station, December 23's −1.91 ft leads on depth, but the highest scores belong to late January: −1.89 ft at 6:24 PM on Friday, January 22, 2027 (score 65) and −1.73 ft at 5:39 PM on Thursday, January 21 (score 64), whose low lands only about half an hour after the light goes. Those dusk tides ride the same alignments as king tide season, when winter's highest highs drain to the year's lowest lows a few hours later.

For the full year at a glance, the year heatmap shows the whole shape of it, the trip picker finds multi-day runs automatically, and the October and November calendars for Newport carry every remaining window. Two shores, one gate, and a season that now ends at sunset — December 21 is the one afternoon left this year when the tide's turn and the daylight agree.