Cape Flattery

This afternoon, I drove out on the Makah Indian Reservation to hike out to Cape Flattery, the northwestern most point in the contiguous US. This trail is 1.5 miles round trip with 200 ft loss/gain. The trail descends in the beautiful forest.

From a view platform looking north from Cape Flattery, in the far distance is Vancouver Island, Canada.

view to the north from the end of Cape Flattery

view to the south from the tip of Cape Flattery 

view to the west: Tatoosh Island

zoom of the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island

From the cape we could hear the sea lions barking off on this rock to the north of Tatoosh Island. (zoom)

I spent about an hour at the cape, enjoying the view, watching sea lions (zoom) swim below and a variety of shore birds.

pigeon guillemot (zoom)

from a viewpoint along the trail looking though the trees to the southwest

 

Cape Flattery

For my second hike in the Makah Reservation today, I took the Cape Trail to the end of Cape Flattery which is the northwestern most point of the lower 48 states. this is also the northern boundary of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. The trail is 1.5 miles round trip with 200 ft of loss/gain. The trail is part boardwalk and part dirt.

Side view point looking north, love the color of the ocean here.

Tatoosh Island with lighthouse to the west of Cape Flattery. Today, we saw a sea otter swimming below the viewpoint.

Another view to the north

viewpoint looking south among the coves

another view to the south

As I was driving out, I saw these 3 swans swimmin on the Waatch River in the Makah Reservation.

 

Cape Flattery

After our hike to Shi Shi Beach, we drove north in the Makah Indian Reservation to the Cape Flattery Trailhead. This is a short 1.5 mile round trip hike to the most northwest point of the contiguous U.S.

A nice short walk in the forest, with quite a bit of the trail a boardwalk.

View from the end of Cape Flattery, we saw gray whales spouting between us and Tatoosh Island.

zoom of Tatoosh Island with the lighthouse.














North of Tatoosh Island was a large rock with a lot of sea lions resting on top.

There are also views of the shore of Cape Flattery (Vancouver Island is in the distance to the north)

view to the south

a platform looking out along the north of Cape Flattery

We also followed a boot track near the trailhead that went north along Cape Flattery but not find any great views here.

Cape Flattery

 We drove out to Neah Bay for a couple of hikes. First, we hiked out to Cape Flattery, a 1.5 mile round trip.  The walk is through a beautiful forest.

















Some of the trail is on dirt and some on boardwalk.

Wide angle view from the end of Cape Flattery, in the middle is Tatoosh Island.

We saw a large sea lion swimming below us

View to the north, Vancouver Island in the background

View to the south

some views along the turn outs off the trail

Cape Flattery Winter Walk

 After our hike to Shi Shi Beach, we drove up to the NW corner of the Makah Indian Reservation to walk out to Cape Flattery. This is the uttermost NW corner of the continental US. It is a short 1.5 mile walk.

Part of the trail is a nice cedar boardwalk, 

 other sections are dirt and water.


















There are several view points along each side of the walk, looking both southward:

and northward:

At the end of the trail is a nice platform overlooking Tatoosh Island.

Pano from the platform at the end of Cape Flattery

There was lots of large kelp in the ocean today

 More views from Cape Flattery

 some large waves crashing near Tatoosh Island

 some interesting trees along the trail