THE ROCK AT
SILVER POINT
S
ilver Point marks the south edge of
Cannon Beach — or, if you prefer,
Tolovana Park. It’s where the houses
stop and the trees continue. Along the
sloping ridge, perpendicular to the sea, the
limbs are windswept, matted back like hair
that’s been slept on.
Beneath is a garden of craggy boulders,
the tip of which is an enormous rock. It
juts up like a deck, overhanging the beach
between the tide lines. It’s tall — perhaps 20
feet or more. Certainly high enough whereas
a fall could mark the end of the line.
I came upon the rock shortly after moving
to Cannon Beach. Something — perhaps the
position of the sun, or that it’s always less
crowded — always pulls me south when I
walk. Almost as strong is the magnetic desire
to climb up. It only takes a second: Scurry
over the waist-high wall, and the rest is like
a ramp. The only treacherous part is the
foot-wide crack, into which slipping would
be nasty, full of cuts and scrapes and maybe
broken bones. Just being thoughtful, though,
is enough to avoid it.
Standing on top is striking. It’s much
higher than it looks from the ground. A grand
perch indeed, the tower between beginning
and end of civilization, and a place to
survey the tiny bodies buzzing
below as they ride by on
bikes, explore the
adjacent cave,
Submitted photo
A portion of the huge rock at Silver Point in south Cannon
Beach toppled forward this winter.
or run free with their dogs. Sometimes they
wave. Sometimes they don’t see you at ¿ rst
and get startled. Sometimes they miss you
altogether.
The rock shelf is comfortable. It’s got
plenty of space to sit or lay. It’s a place to
watch sunsets and get suntans, to sing along
to music, or simply just to stop, think, or let
it all go. It’s a place to mourn and a place
to celebrate, with kisses and picnics and
back-rubs. A place to pose while friends take
photos from the ground. A place to turn the
camera on one’s self. It’s a place to spend
the afternoon, or just a momentary shift in
perspective — up to the top, a deep breath
in, nostrils ¿ lling with the coolest, crispest,
invigorating sea air.
Sometimes, when the winds are gusting,
it can rattle you. The momentary loss of
balance, stumbling, careening, peering over
the edge. And, there, when the tides come in,
looking down at the water swirling below, it
feels like the earth is moving beneath you.
Dizzying waves of vertigo.
I think of it as my rock, but so do my
friends and neighbors. We needle each
other about whose it is. Sometimes I’ll see
someone I know up there and by the look on
their face, the ¿ xture of their gaze and how
far it is out to sea, I’ll know if I should just
walk on by and leave them to their contem-
plation. Other times I’ll join them, just as
others have joined me, friends and strangers
alike. The rock is, of course, all of ours — as
much those who’ve carved their names into
the stone as those who’ve never dreamed of
climbing up.
I was sitting there once, all by myself,
and three 20-somethings joined me. They
were poking around in the crack and I asked
what they were looking for. One told me that
some years ago they
found a little box in the
crevasse. Inside was a
guest-book, in which
visitors had scrawled
little notes. Some of
them, I was told, dated
back to the 1970s. I
joined in the search, but
we came up empty handed. I wondered if the
story was true. I desperately wanted it to be.
If the box and book were ever hidden
there, it seemed wholly plausible that it
could’ve been washed out by a high tide. In-
deed, there were signs of debris in the space;
the water had made its way through.
This January, the tides were particularly
high. Torrential storms raged, even by their
own wild standards. Closer to home, drift-
wood was piling up over the bank that leads
down to the beach.
Coastal Life
Story by ANDREW TONRY
After the storms mellowed, I wandered
again down south. I approached Silver Point,
and from a distance, something puzzled me.
The boulder gardens were more exposed than
usual — deep erosion. But it was more than
that.
As I got closer, I saw it: The rock had split
along the crack, the front half toppled over,
like a car on its side. What was one became
two, and the distance between them was wide
enough to walk through, arms outstretched.
What was the top, where the names were
carved, is now the front, facing the sea. It is
still hulking, the size of a cottage. The slab
it broke from remains,
however diminished.
The high point has be-
come a kind of plank.
It is less comfortable,
more daunting. And the
view, with the broken
rock before it, isn’t
quite the same.
But perhaps the view — and the experi-
ence of spending time up on the rock at Sil-
ver Point — hasn’t diminished at all. It’s just
different. And it’s only through attachment
that we feel some sense of loss. The move-
ment, the reshaping of these 10-ton stones
is but a minuscule reminder: Nothing lasts
forever, and what this wild nature gives us it
may just as soon wipe away, in devastating
and benevolent fashion. It reminds us too that
the only constant is change, and that we have
little choice but to embrace it.
It’s a place to watch sunsets
and get suntans, to sing along
to music, or simply just to
stop, think, or let it all go.
Photo by Andrew Tonry
This January, the tides were high, and
the storms raged. The rock at Silver
Point, left, split along the crack:
The front half toppled over toward
the ocean, like a car on its side.
4 | March 3, 2016 | coastweekend.com