Looking west, out toward the ocean, from the end of Devil's Churn. It looks as if Dana is trying to get a decent shot of the sea cave that's directly below where I'm standing- I need to ask her if she got one. She also provides the best sense of scale of any of these photos. You can see that the rugged basalt offers decent footing, and there's a good, wide platform to walk the length of the chasm. One *can* walk out to the north end as well, and I have done so as a stupid undergrad, but I wouldn't recommend it. That side is steeper, less rocky, and more vegetation-covered. And as you can also see in this photo, a mistake could end in disaster. The water is unusually calm at this moment; it's more often violently swelling, shallowing and turbulent. It's also very cold. Due to upwelling during the summer months, it's actually colder then than during the winter season.
The long and short of it is that I really enjoy Devil's Churn; the geology is complex enough to be interesting, simple enough to figure out pretty easily, safe enough to be enjoyable, and dangerous enough to give the visitor that extra bit of thrill. I suppose you could call this Goldilocks geology: It's *just* right.
Photo unmodified. September 21, 2010.
FlashEarth Location.
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