65|Arch Rock, Samuel H. Boardman Corridor — twelve miles of coast that needed no rewriting

The Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor runs about twelve miles of Highway 101 between Brookings and Gold Beach, and it is the reason the film's Earth reads as ancient rather than dressed. Whaleshead, where Mills first walks out of the wreck, is only one cove inside it. Arch Rock is the viewpoint that shows you the whole architecture at once: headland after headland dropping into the water, each with its own scatter of stacks, the far ones going blue with distance.

The stop is almost too easy. A paved loop off the highway, a hundred yards of level path, a low rail, and then the drop. The arch sits below and slightly north, and unless the swell is up you may not register it at first among the other rock. Sitka spruce here grow flagged — all their branches combed to the landward side by wind that never really stops.

Give it ten minutes rather than two. The fog moves through in banks, and the headlands appear and vanish one at a time, which is exactly the trick the film's establishing shots are doing.