We started out our day at the Astoria tower, the highest point in the city. From the top of the tower, we were able to see much of the city, as well as the path that the Columbia River took through this area. This area of the river needs to be dredged each year so that the massive ships would be able to pass through.  After a bit of sightseeing from the tower, it was time to start our three day Friends of the Pleistocene field trip. After some brief introductions and an overview of the trip, we all headed out to our first stop.

View of Astoria and the Columbia River from the Astoria Tower

To get to our next stop, we needed to cross the massive suspension bridge across the Columbia River back to Washington for our destination of Long Beach. When we arrived there, the weather was beautiful; about 70 degrees and sunny with a slight wind. Our focus here was to look at the accretion of the beach in this area due to the building of jetties. Here we were also introduced to what the effects would be if a tsunami were to ever strike in this area.