This mountain shits bricks, still alive after all these eons, it moves and drops. Assaulted by the wind and waves, winter blasts it with gusts around 70 and 80mph being routine. Driving rains measured in inches every few hours, saturate rocks and cracks. Freezing nights complete the face lift as small rocks litter the shoreline, slides sag and take out vegetation with them. There is a sweet little spot in the trees that holds a little bench and a view.
At the beginning of the winter a huge chunk of rock fell off the face of the mountain, hit the slopes below and shattered into millions of pieces. If you had been there at the moment this happened I think you would have come close to dying if not death itself. None of the bigger chunks or boulders like the one shown pierced the trees, but it was littered with fist sized chunks, they must have been flying through like shrapnel. Think of a special effects scene from some meteoroid shower sequence in a movie.
Unlike similar headlands north of here, which are extensions of Eastern Oregon lava (now basalt) this was formed from coast range lava flows millennia ago. It's daunting to imagine flows this high and so long that they extend hundreds of miles. The ocean depths hide the full tale of these giants as they drop into the sea.
The sand holds all these deposits from the cliffs above. They fall and break apart and then crumble further as they await the tides. As I wait for tides. Changing into a wettie I wonder how, with this much debris I have never seen or heard a rock being expelled. How close would be too close? This mountain is taking a crap regularly, it's a matter of time till someone witnesses, at their peril perhaps this natural function in action.
Pic courtesy: http://foulweather.blogspot.com/
