It would be hard to imagine a gloomier day, and I loved it.  Ice fell from the trees onto snow no longer white.  The cold rain fell through misty air.  Puget Sound's glassy surface showed each raindrop as it fell.  No one else ventured into the park except me and the ducks.  They dove down into the eel grass beds for their meals.  If you have to dive into Puget Sound for a living, you don't care if it's cold and raining.(I think the diving birds were horned grebes, but I didn't have binoculars, so I can't be sure.)

I don't particularly like the staircase because it attracts people who come to the park only for the stairs. (I have no objection to people climbing stairs for exercise.  It is even possible that most people who climb the stairs also appreciate nature.  There seems to be a minority of people who think the rest of the park is just something you have to get through to get to the stairs, and these people don't feel they should have to take care of the environment.) Even if I think the stairs fit the definition of Attractive Nuisance, they do make it much easier to get to the beach when the earth is mud and ice.  Also, the stairs protect the slope.  If a trail had been cut into the steep hillside, it would channel water, kids would make shortcuts, and the slope would probably slide much sooner than its natural schedule, wiping out the trail.  In a natural environment, the stairs are violently unnatural, but they do protect the environment.  The slope does appear to be getting ready to slide.  This is landslide season, and the forecast for the next ten days calls for rain every day.  The waves at high tide have hollowed out a cavern under the wooden steps closest to the beach.  The alders north of the stairs are completely undermined.  At the south end of the beach, near the bulkhead, water from a spring is cutting under an alder.  There were small landslides in 2008, 2009, and 2010.  I would be surprised if we didn't have another landslide soon.  The wooden stairs at the bottom may fall into the sea, but the concrete landings will be the last thing to go.  The concrete portion you see is really just a cap.  All the weight of the stairs is supported by pin pilings that were driven into the earth as far as they could go.  Each concrete landing is filled with Styrofoam.  They look massive, but they are relatively light. 

Falling branches bring the canopy down so we can study it.  This branch fell from 70 to 80 feet.  Stone 20 is pictured with at least three species of lichen.  I think the one on the right is Lobaria.  I will try to take a good camera and get a better picture.