View the Future 2026 March Newsletter Special Edition

Gretchen Dubie
3 days ago
8 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Director's Message:

"We preserve, protect, and enhance the natural environment through collaborative actions for scientific, educational, recreational, cultural, and economic goals that benefit the Yachats community and its future generations."

Yachats Ridge

Caring for the land above the river is one of the most important responsibilities we share as a community. What happens high on the slopes—how we build, maintain, and respect the terrain—inevitably shapes the health and safety of everything below. When steep ground is neglected or altered without care, landslides are not a distant possibility; they are an imminent consequence.

This is why the Yachats Ridge is a primary focus of View the Future, and our March newsletter. Its beauty is undeniable, but so is its vulnerability. The ridgeline has a long memory, marked by past landslides that reshaped the land and the lives connected to it. Stories like Steve Rumrill’s in this edition, remind us not only of the devastation that can occur, but of the deep personal and ecological costs when slopes fail.

As we look ahead, let us commit to thoughtful stewardship—protecting our watersheds, tending our hillsides, and ensuring that the land we pass on is safer, healthier, and more resilient than the land we inherited. Caring for this place is not just environmental work; it is community work, and it begins with all of us.

In gratitude

Gretchen

YACHATS RIDGE

Links our Past and our Future

A Note from Joanne Kittel:

Yachats Ridge (1000 Acres) has been a primary goal for View the Future, its partners, and supporters to preserve watersheds, forestland, meadows, and wildfire for nearly 22 years. Several barriers, including frequent ownership changes (another recent one), and limited and very competitive funding have prevented its acquisition for its long-term preservation. Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s (OPRD) interest a few years back was both sincere and very serious, but limited funding prevented OPRD from being able to follow through. Also, with the federal administration dismantling environmental protections, the federal system in charge has eliminated most of the federal funding for environmental preservation and climate resilience.

Many of you don’t know about the past serious debris slides that originated from Yachats Ridge due to decades of industrial logging. In 1974, large debris slides originating from this property (then owned by International Paper) wiped out the City ‘s original water system at lower North Cape Creek, Amanda Creek, and an unnamed creek watershed.

A second in 1997, created extensive damage to homes and lands in two areas on the south side of Yachats. A third slide occurred in 2015 scraping the entire Yachats watershed, its new Amanda bridge, iconic statue, and closing the Amanda Trail for 5 months. Many more slides have happened out of community sight that have compromised the forestland, riparian areas, and creeks.

When the City took successful action to delay the 16+ acres of the steep property bordering the southwest portion of the Yachats Ridge property, it did so out of concern for the safety preventing future debris slides to neighboring homes and the Yachats River.

Currently, partnering with a large land trust and new group of esteemed supporters, and with expanding our partnerships, we are continuing to work toward Yachats Ridge being permanently preserved for our wildlife, forested and meadow lands, and very importantly our watershed. We are researching what grants are left and pursuing significant private donations. All donations are very welcomed.

We want you all to know that even though we may not report on a Yachats Ridge update every month, VtF has never given up with these acquisition efforts, not for a second.

Nothing can illustrate the need to secure Yachats Ridge out of industrial logging in the future than a true and very poignant story told by Dr. Steve Rumrill, a VtF volunteer and soon to be board member. Steve comes to VtF with vast expertise- 36 years of professional experience working in Oregon as a coastal and marine resource manager. These experiences include:

Chief Scientist and Research Program Coordinator at the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (1990-2011; 5,000 acre-coastal watershed and estuary research-natural area located near Charleston, OR, operated jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Oregon Department of State Lands)
Oregon Shellfish Program Leader (2011-2025; Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife / Marine Resources Program, Newport, OR).

Thank you, Steve for sharing your sad and traumatic story, and the recent and poignant synchronistic occurrence while on Yachats Ridge.

Joanne Kittel

Caution, Remembrance, and Remarkable Coincidence on Yachats Ridge

By Steve Rumrill, VtF Volunteer

**Carl Meibergen and Steve Rumrill 2026-reunited after 52 years through story.**

On December 13, 2025, View the Future hosted a field tour of the Yachats Ridge for visitors from the Obsidians Hiking Club (Eugene, OR). The group drove up steep roads and walked along trails to several strategic locations within the potential land trust area where they stopped to discuss the natural features and significant history of the coastal landscape.

About mid-way through the tour, we assembled in an open south-facing meadow ringed by wind-swept spruce, hemlock, and Douglas fir, and took in the magnificent view of the coastal land-margin ecosystem. Joanne Kittel spoke about the watershed connections to the shoreline and sea, and she explained the history of past landslides that have periodically cut loose along the steep hillsides and left a path of destruction along their descent to the streams and creeks below. In most cases, recent landslides were precipitated by human activities including road building, clearcuts, improper culverts, and clogged drainage ditches. Joanne concluded her discussion with the caution that careful planning and restorative work were needed to mitigate past mistakes and to avoid construction in areas with naturally elevated risk to future landslides and other forms of mass wasting.

I listened intently as Joanne spoke, and a solemn sense of remembrance crept into my gut. I wondered for a moment if I should share my story…

Then I stepped forward to address the group.

Gene Rumrill with student on field trip in 1974

“Back in the early 1970s and 1980s, my father Gene Rumrill was a professor at the University of California / Santa Cruz. He was the founder of the Sierra Institute, and he led classes to explore wilderness ethics in remote settings in the Ventana Wilderness, Sierra Mountains, southwest deserts, and wild places in British Columbia. Dad and his fiancé Vonna lived in a rustic wood home built up into the steep hillsides above Santa Cruz, near the small community of Ben Lomond. Their home was surrounded by tall redwoods and hemlock trees, and their deck was always sprinkled with sunlight and shade.

“In the winter of 1981-82, a strong El Nino weather pattern emerged along the west coast, and the coastal communities around Santa Cruz received almost 40 inches of rain in November and December. The heavy rainfall continued into January, and the forested hillsides were saturated, rivers were surging, and mud ran down roadways and streets.

“My father was concerned about the rising floodwaters in Love Creek that flowed below their home, and about the fate of his Dodge van parked along the riverbank. In my last conversation with my father, I told him that I would come over the next morning to help move his van out of harm’s way.

“During the early hours of January 5, 1982, a massive landslide cut loose next to a roadcut in the hills above Love Creek. About 18 million cubic feet of materials slid down the steep marine terrace, carrying mud, trees, homes, and devastating everything in its path. The landslide and fallen trees crushed my father’s house, killing him, Vonna and their dog as they slept together on their bed. Ten people lost their lives, and thirty homes were buried during the Love Creek mudslide, and it was the deadliest landslide and mud flow in California’s recorded history.”

When I was finished with that remembrance, I told the group that I will always have this personal connection with coastal landslides. I agreed entirely with Joanne’s earlier statement that careful planning and detailed assessments of risk are needed to ensure safety of residents and success of conservation efforts in steep coastal watersheds.

In a remarkable coincidence, Carl Meibergen, View the Future volunteer, stepped forward to address the group. “I knew Gene Rumrill, and I was a student in one of his classes in British Columbia. It was a canoe trip in the Bowron Lake Provencial Park area back in 1974. It broke my heart to learn that he had died in that terrible landslide. Gene was a remarkable teacher who really touched my heart and helped me see the world through different eyes.”

When he was finished speaking Carl had a tear in his eye. I looked carefully at Carl and saw him in a new way.

Carl and I had met many years in the past. 52 years ago, Carl and I were among the group of students who participated in the class taught by my father during the canoe trip. But in the preceding hours, before that moment up on the south-facing hillside along Yachats Ridge, I did not remember Carl’s name, nor did I recognize him at any point earlier in the day. It took the recollection of the Love Creek landslide to bring back our common antiquity with my father.

Carl and Steve on the canoe trip in 1974

I realize now, as I write these words, that my father’s premature death serves as an ever-present reminder about the potential for sudden landslides to periodically unleash their deadly fury on victims below. And the tear in Carl’s eye reminds me that my father’s great power as a teacher, writer, and wilderness theologian was in his ability to clearly connect people with the natural world. He had an inherent drive to encourage students to explore their personal relationships with nature, and to make a conscious effort to cultivate meaningful alliances and spiritual associations with natural places, biotic communities, and wild creatures every day of our short and uncertain lives.

As we move forward, may we remain united in our commitment to the Yachats Ridge and the land that shapes our shared home. Its strength, beauty, and vulnerability remind us that our actions matter, and that thoughtful stewardship protects both our environment and our community. By caring for The Ridge, we honor the past, safeguard the present, and build a more resilient future for all who call this place home. -VtF-

Please donate

To learn more go to: https://www.viewthefuture.org/upcoming-events — **To learn more go to:** **https://www.viewthefuture.org/upcoming-events**

Cultural Presentations

Devin Boss - "What We Lost Along the Way"

April 26, 2025 @ 2:00 PM @ Yachats Commons

Join us in welcoming the return of award‑winning filmmaker Devin Boss as our upcoming featured speaker. Devin was featured at the Land and Sea Symposium this year for his film "What We Lost Along the Way," and left us wanting to hear more! Boss recently won a Best Shorts Award in the International Best Shorts Competition. He created his film during a time when he was “brimming with pain, and nowhere to put it,” and the film invites viewers to be intentional about spending time in nature with loved ones. Boss also explores the often‑complicated relationship Black people have with nature, asking the honest question, “Why do we assume this isn’t for us?” Don’t miss this chance to hear directly from a storyteller whose work is inspiring people to reconnect—with themselves, with each other, and with the outdoors!

https://www.viewthefuture.org/upcoming-events

Save the Date: