The weather has been great for autumn beach walks, and I highly recommend this walk to anyone who wants to see just how big a problem life on the bluff can be and how difficult it is to correct the problem.
The walk begins at Horton’s Point Lighthouse. There are 127 steps going down…alot more going back up! When you get to the beach, go right, East, and after a while you will come to what has to be one of the biggest and most expensive bulk-heading jobs on the North fork….very impressive! You will appreciate what a great job it is when you continue on to where you see a wonderful conflagration of huge steel buoys washed up on the beach, 5 of them in various states of decay, about 5′ in diameter. Perhaps they are from the Northville fuel docking station. Just beyond the buoys you will see the bluff of a cove that extends about a quarter of a mile which is completely eroded from top to bottom. It’s amazing. What is more amazing is that you will notice a house in the middle of the cove which looks to be about 30′ from the top of the eroding bluff. This house has what remains of a deck hanging off the top of the bluff. I supposed this eroded cove is made up of 4 to 6 different properties, so it would take a joint and coordinated action on the part of all affected owns to stabilize the bluff.
As you walk the beach it is apparent that this section unfortunately contains no huge boulders as does the rest of that stretch of beach. The eroding bluffs seem to be all sand and gravel with clay at the beach level, so that as it erodes more, no big boulders will fall down and protect the toe of the bluff. I had no idea that there was any large scale problem such as this on the North Fork. I have seen areas elsewhere that are several hundred feet, but this looks like several thousand feet to me…its huge.
Here are some photos of the walk.
No Comments