A landslide that has been ongoing since mid-January took a dramatic turn over the weekend, reaching all the way to a trailhead parking lot where some sightseers got dangerously close to the collapsing cliff edge.
The landslide is happening at Centerville Beach, due west of Ferndale in Humboldt County, in the Lost Coast Headlands. It's an area known as the Fleener Creek Trailhead at Pecker's Point, and the area's parking lot, which was once quite a distance away from the cliff edge, is now at the cliff edge after another huge chunk of the coastline fell between Saturday and Sunday.
SFGate first alerted us to the news.
This has been going on for some time, and even a year ago there were signs posted warning hikers to stay well away from this cliff edge. The Bureau of Land Management's Arcata Field Office issued a notice of temporary closure for the Fleener Creek Trailhead and parking lot on January 18, after the latest landslide began and took out a wooden staircase that led down part of the Fleener Creek Trail.
At the time, the manager of the BLM Arcata Field Office, Collin Ewing, said in a statement, "Our staff are evaluating the situation to determine what repairs are needed, and how long those repairs will take. The situation has been exacerbated by ongoing winter storms."
It now seems like the entire trail area will need to be reconfigured after the land stabilizes — and even part of Centerville Road, which leads to the parking area, is now threatened by the landslide.
A father-and-son photography team, Double B-UAV, took their drone out to the slide over the weekend and captured some before-and-after images, as well as video of the cliff continuing to collapse.
All Trails has photos of what the area looked before the landslide.
Below is more video from sunset on Sunday — and this person should not have been standing this close!!
Top image via Kevin LoMiglio/Instagram
