65|Whaleshead Beach — the first shore on a world that isn't Earth

The escape pod comes down, and Mills walks out onto wet sand under a sky he does not recognize. The rocks he passes are real, and they are in Oregon. Whaleshead Beach sits near the southern end of the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, a few miles north of Brookings, and it is where the production put Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt on a shoreline meant to read as Earth sixty-five million years before anyone would name it. No set was built. The dark stacks offshore, the drift logs, the fog that comes in sideways off the swell — all of that was already here.

The cove takes its name from the offshore rock that spouts spray from a blowhole when a big swell hits, which anyone in Brookings will tell you before you ask. A short trail drops from the day-use parking area through salal and wind-bent spruce to the sand. Go at low tide and the stacks stand clear of the water in the same arrangement the film uses for its widest shots. Go on a winter afternoon and you will understand why the crew worked fast. Bring a jacket you don't mind soaking, because the spray reaches the trail.