The secrets of Sand Lake

Little over a month ago, my wife and I spent Valentine's Day weekend at the coast with our dear friends from college.

On Sunday morning they suggested a short hike at Whalen Island, near Pacific City. Within the hour, there we were, walking peacefully on a trail framed by Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and which led to a pristine estuary populated by no one by the four of us and a few shorebirds. As I took in the view -- imagine a flat expanse of sand remembling salt flats -- I could hardly believe that I was soaking up the sun in a T-shirt and shorts on the Oregon Coast in the middle of February, a place and time when you'd normally be pelted by windblown rain.

It was magical.

So imagine my surprise and pleasure when I saw that very same place splashed across the front page of this morning's newspaper. Reporter Abby Haight and photographer Torsten Kjellstrand did justice to the place, as you can tell from this excerpt, the photo above and a video you can see at www.oregonlive.com/environment.

SAND LAKE -- Sleet pelts the mud flats at Whalen Island as dawn gives way to gray morning.

A great egret, shimmering white, hunts the tidal channel at low tide. Goldeneyes in striking black and white paddle nearby. A belted kingfisher scouts for breakfast from a spruce branch.

Wild things rule Whalen Island in winter. But the small hump of sand south of Tillamook is an emblem to human intervention and governmental cooperation. It remains one of the most pristine tidelands in Oregon -- thanks to the human conviction that luck will pay out.

Thirty years of living in Oregon and I'd never even heard of Whalen Island and the Clay Myers State Natural Area (although, as a reporter, I did know Clay Myers as the state treasurer). Thanks to a voter-approved referendum 10 years ago, the state now uses lottery money for purchase and preserve parks.

Along with legalizing medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, I'd say this is one of the smarter things Oregonians have done with their votes in the past decade. Go visit. You'll love it.