RiverUnited States · US
New River
The New River is one of the Oregon coast's quiet curiosities: a short, slow stream of just about 8 miles (13 km) that slips north behind a wall of sand dunes before reaching the Pacific Ocean between Bandon and Port Orford. It is also a very young river. Its channel was cut by a storm in 1890, when blowing sand blocked the outlet of nearby Floras Lake and the floodwater burst open a new path along the base of the foredune—hence the name. Today that same low, flat corridor is the heart of the New River Area of Critical Environmental Concern, a roughly 1,200-acre site managed by the Bureau of Land Management for both habitat and recreation. For visitors it means a gentle paddle through dunes and wetland, big numbers of migrating birds, a quiet river mouth for fishing, and a string of trails and gravel roads that make the coastline easy to wander.