Ecola means “whale” in the Chinook Wawa trade language — and, much like a whale, parts of Ecola State Park are charging out to sea.

The park is closed indefinitely following a landslide in February that damaged the primary entrance road and sent a portion of a trail, trees and salal bushes cascading over a cliff edge.

With the closure, the state expects increased tourism and recreational pressure on other state parks, especially parks like Oswald West farther south.

What a prolonged closure might mean for the local economy is anyone’s guess.Ecola State Park is one of Cannon Beach’s main attractions, coming in second below the iconic Haystack Rock, said Jim Paino, the executive director of the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce.

“Right now I’d say the impact isn’t huge,” he said. “But we still get people in the visitor center who came to go to the park and are surprised that it’s closed.”

Ecola sees more than half a million day-use visitors every year. State park sites on the North Coast in general have only been growing in popularity in recent years.

While Paino can’t quantify the economic impact of Ecola being off limits — Cannon Beach hasn’t had to weather a long closure in years — he believes there will be a hit to a certain extent, especially if the closure extends into the summer tourism season.

The chamber published a new page on its website that lists alternative places to visit, both to get the word out about Ecola and to show visitors there are still other options. Listed are sites primarily south of Ecola, including Falcon Cove and Short Sand Beach in Oswald West.

The state has prepared a request for bids to repair the damaged section of Ecola Park Road and is waiting on contractors. An update to park staff stated it was “still too early to even guess about a completion date.”

Once the road is made safe, work can begin to repair water and communication lines also damaged in the slide. Repairs to the trail below the road that was washed out by the slide are expected to take even longer.

Work to reroute a trail between Ecola Point and Indian Beach that was cut in half by a slide in 2016 has been on hold because of winter weather. Depending on how long the road repairs take, the reroute may also be delayed.

Sections of Ecola Park Road need to be repaired to some extent nearly every winter as landslides are exacerbated by heavy rainfall and storms. Access to Indian Beach has occasionally been shut down. Still, there have not been lengthy closures at the park in years.In 1961, a landslide at Ecola Point damaged 125 acres and the park was closed for 10 months. It was closed again for four months in 1975 because of a slide that affected the entrance road.

Following repairs this time, the state plans to revisit a broader repair strategy.

“We may still come to the same conclusion — that continuing repairs to the current road is the way to go — but we will also consider the benefits and costs of finding a different route for cars into the park,” Chris Havel, associate director at the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation, wrote in an email.

“That’s a much longer-term, more expensive option,” he continued, “and we would need a more detailed geotechnical report to guide that discussion.”

Park officials are referencing a geotechnical report and list of recommendations from 2016 and 2017 that looked at four different landslides affecting roads in the Oregon State Parks system. Two of the landslides were in Ecola State Park; the other two were also in coastal parks.

“The landslide moves periodically when precipitation is the highest and can be expected to continue to do so,” the memo stated about Ecola State Park and a slide that affects the same section of road in need of repair this year.

Engineers recommended long-term maintenance, and said slide movement should be expected to continue indefinitely, requiring ongoing maintenance.

“Without mitigation, the slide may grow or accelerate,” the study noted in a table outlining the risks and limitations of mitigation options.

“Landslides of this size are often relatively expensive to mitigate compared to the maintenance costs,” the study continued. “Therefore continued maintenance is common for large landslides.”

For now, cables and signs block trail routes through the park and the gates are closed on Ecola Park Road.

When the landslide tore apart the trail from Ecola Point to Indian Beach, rangers put out signs, but people tracked their own paths through the landslide area anyway.

This time, Ben Cox, the park manager, opted for stronger wording. The sturdy signs erected depict a small figure stumbling down a hillside amid falling debris.

“Absolutely no entry,” the sign states. “Active landslide.”