Irondale

Irondale and Chimacum are the southern and northern halves of the same beach, at least as I see it, and as they have before, they will generate two posts. Short posts - since I'm way behind and I promised myself I would write less this year.

Irondale is the site of a large 19th-century iron smelter which was finally cleaned up a few years ago after more than a century of abandonment.

Irondale (March 2013) (which in turn links further back)

The old brick beehive ovens continue to gradually erode onto the beach, some of the smelter slag still crops out as ledges on the beach, and a number of old stone foundations pieces were left behind. But the beach is doing great. This is an unusually sandy system (by Puget Sound standards) - the virtue of having been constructed a century ago with sand (and clam shell) dredged from the bottom of the bay. 

There's a gentle promontory in the central portion of the site where the berm inevitably wants to shift landward, but this is neither rapid nor a problem. A few of the logs that were placed along the berm have been undermined and as I recall there might be some sort of monitoring well(?) that may in time be exposed (if so, it will make a nice erosion reference).

The Irondale Beach continues seamlessly to the north, eventually becoming Chimacum Beach, where we'll go next.