August 7, 2009

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A very large number of people at this beach. I think many are attracted by the surfing lessons, I have no idea who's offering them. The parking lot closest to the beach steps was almost full, mostly, I think, with surfers/surfer student vehicles. Wouldn't hurt if the instructors: (1) are required to provide life-saving personnel/meet certain standards for provision thereof--as I see no reason why either the Coast Guard or the Fire & Rescue people in Otter Rock/Depoe Bay should have to subsidize a profit making activity like surfing lessons by providing free rescue service if it's needed. (2) pay a fee to state parks--given that they are taking up so many parking spaces. Again, for a profit-making activity. All dogs I saw under reasonably good control, whether on or off leash. I was surprised by how many fire circles I saw along my mile, at least 5-7, stretching from just north of Beverly Beach state park access all the way to the immediately adjacent to the beach steps (north end of mile). There were two fires going while I was walking the mile, one was well away from any vegetation, the other was located almost in the midst of the mass of drift logs near the Alpine Chalet access. The fire circles tend to be loosely clustered (in terms of concentration) near the several access points along this mile, although one was probably close to a 1/3 of a mile from an access. Most were in the sand, near the base of a bluff.I was pleased to see with how free from litter the beach looked, despite what looks like unusually heavy use this summer (lots of footprints). I saw two people w/small dogs on the leash also carrying a plastic bag (shopping bag)--I don't know if they were picking up litter or not.However, I did not see evidence that people were picking up after their dogs (although I didn't see any dog feces either so perhaps I just didn't see it happening).