July 22, 2023

Temperature: 63 F. Cloud Cover: Foggy. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: NW.

Number of people: 43. Number of dogs: 13. Walking or running: 36. Sitting: 5. Surfing: 2. I didn't count the vehicles. There are 3 (legal) parking areas at the north end of my mile. (1) along the street near Devil's Churn, Mo's, etc, those spaces seemed to be full or close to it. (2) two parking lots: (i) the lot I parked in was 3/4s full when I arrived, full when I left; (2) parking lot 2 had 6 empty spaces when I left, or about 4/5s full. I didn't check lot 2 when I arrived. .There were vehicles frequently driving in & out of the area, possibly because they couldn't find a space, people weren't staying long or both or? I saw what looked like a new sign (since I last walked my mile) on the street "slow down children playing" and several home made 'slow down" signs as well as barriers to prevent parking along the street east of the parking for viewing the Devil's Churn or eating at Mo's, etc. My first view of the beach when I arrived at the bottom of the long staircase was seeing 2 people watching their dog have a BM in the intertidal zone (since it was a very low tide) They did not pick it up. Always a pleasure to see how much respect & care people visiting the OR coast show for the cleanliness of the beach, the water, and health of surfers.

Fire

Total stranded mammals: 1. Stranded/dead. I can't give a description of what I suspect was a seal because someone or several someones had decided to "bury" it, not by digging a hole but by covering it w/layers of sand. However, I could still smell it when I got close enough to get a look, I frightened off 2 vultures & 3 crows Who returned as soon as I departed. It seemed like the right size & outline for a seal.

Small rocks. Sea whips. No whole shells, just pieces of shells. Surpising lack of the usual load of plastic bits. There is sometimes more then one drift line on this beach, I walked parallel to what seemed to be the most recent high tide line for maybe 1/2 of the mile.

Landslides/major boulder falls, Visible retreat of solid bluff. A continuation of what I observed on my previous visit. The substantial slide I observed & photographed over the winter seem to have been pretty much eroded/the sediment composing the slide washed away in high tides. I had notced a decrease in the side of the slide on my previous visit compared to the first time I observed the slide.

There is no action to take, most of the erosion is natural.   ODOT continues to ignore the deterioration of a culvert that appears to run under 101 about midpoint to the south 1/3 of my mile.   I did try to contact ODOT some years ago, got no response.  I don't know the closest mile marker to the culvert, I see it from the beach, don't have a GPS, perhaps that's what ODOT requires.