Pebble Beach

Way back in 2005, I picked as a subtitle for this blog:

PUGET SOUND BEACHES ... NOT REALLY JUST GRAVEL, BUT SAND, BROKEN SHELL, AND OCCASIONALLY A BOULDER THE SIZE OF A LARGE TRUCK.

This beach on the southwestern side of Fox Island fits that nicely. The beach face is gravel - or at least the surface layer is fairly uniform looking gravel - but beneath the natural armor is a much more diverse mixture of sand, gravel, and broken shell.  There is a distinct break at low tide to a flatter, sandier terrace, although the transition is far from uniform along this beach.  There's a lot of uneveness to this beach - a rolling topography and an irregularity to the low tide terrace.  There are gravel bedforms that contribute to this, but I suspect it is related mainly to the underlying geology.  The gravel-rich bluffs leave little doubt of the source of the beach sediments.

The largest pebble on this beach is 10' high and is called "The Big Rock." It has the remnants of a survey marker on top, along with small divots that may once have supported a tripod.

The development along the beach is limited to a few homes and cabins tucked into low spots along the otherwise high bluffs.  Most of the new development is upland - big homes typical of the high end suburban sprawl that characterizes the Gig Harbor Peninsula.



Madronas (Arbutus menzeii) are a signature tree of many of our bluffs, particularly on dry south facing slopes.  They can hang tenuously on the edges of cliffs for decades. I've seen some that from their size and growth habit have probably been in a perpetual state of falling over the edge for more than a century.  Apparently, the owners of this bluff didn't like them, but I thought we'd moved beyond this kind of thing.

AERIAL VIEW