Bridge at the Devil's Elbow

Oregon Coast, OR.

Cape Creek comes out of the coastal range and empties into Devil's Elbow Bay, just below Heceta Head and it's famous lighthouse. The more famous bridge is behind me. Built in 1932, the Cape Creek Bridge, engineered by Conde McCullough, is now considered an historic marvel of the coastal highway. My bridge is much more temporary...a denuded log that somehow made it here from the interior. Big wood often gets washed out of the mountains in storms, into the Pacific, where it may be wave-worn smooth and flung to shore, only to be picked up again in another high tide storm and end up miles away on yet another beach. Water soaked and of solid mass, it is too heavy for beachcombers to move this; but whether pounded in by the sea or carried here by the creek in higher water, it serves a human purpose until its next journey, getting me back across the creek before I get soaked by the coming rain that blurs my camera lens and ruins any further photography here for this day.

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Filename: Bridge at the Devil's Elbow_RP16640_4111_May MSTR copy.jpg
Image Size: 1800x1195 / 2.4MB; Cape Creek Devil's Elbow Features Heceta Heceta Head OR Oregon Oregon Coast Pacific Ocean beach coast landscape landscape photography ocean seascape
Contained in galleries: West

Oregon Coast, OR.<br />
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Cape Creek comes out of the coastal range and empties into Devil's Elbow Bay, just below Heceta Head and it's famous lighthouse. The more famous bridge is behind me. Built in 1932, the Cape Creek Bridge, engineered by Conde McCullough, is now considered an historic marvel of the coastal highway. My bridge is much more temporary...a denuded log that somehow made it here from the interior. Big wood often gets washed out of the mountains in storms, into the Pacific, where it may be wave-worn smooth and flung to shore, only to be picked up again in another high tide storm and end up miles away on yet another beach. Water soaked and of solid mass, it is too heavy for beachcombers to move this; but whether pounded in by the sea or carried here by the creek in higher water, it serves a human purpose until its next journey, getting me back across the creek before I get soaked by the coming rain that blurs my camera lens and ruins any further photography here for this day.