2012/05 Western USA trip - Cape Flattery |
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Saturday May 19th
On Saturday we were headed in the other direction up north towards Cape Flattery, the westernmost point of the contiguous 48 states. This took us up to Clallum Bay and along the beaches of the Juan da Fuca Strait with the hills of Vancouver Island on our northern horizon. We were hoping to spot some seals along this coast, but there are few places to pull off the road, and most of those were occupied by locals who’d managed to pull their trailers onto the beach.
The road brought us to Neah Bay, home of the Makah Indians, famous or infamous for holding their traditional whale hunts. To their credit, they still hunt in the traditional manner using harpoons from canoes, only using a gun to finish the whale off. We visited the Makah museum, much better than I expected. It is full of artifacts from the village of Ozette, buried and preserved five hundred years ago by a massive mudslide, and recently excavated. There was also the weird story of Japanese fishermen whose ship was dismasted. They drifted across the Pacific only to be shipwrecked at Cape Flattery and then rescued and enslaved by the Makah. The British bought them from the Makah, and the youngest eventually became a translator for British business’ negotiations with Japan.
Cape Flattery is on the Makah reservation and we had to buy a recreation permit to drive their roads. The permit gave us access for the rest of the calendar year, whenever we happened to be on the res. What a deal! On my first visit, back in the 1980s there were no permits, but there was no boardwalk to the Cape either; I just drove the road until I saw a muddy trail heading off down the hill. It was heavily eroded and the tree roots were at waist level so I had a choice of 
climbing over or squirming under. After an hour of muddy clambering I negotiated the last root and I was right there on the cliff edge, looking hundreds of feet down into the Pacific. Today there is a very civilized and safe boardwalk leading to the cliff and some fenced lookouts, worth every penny of the permit.
The view from the clifftop was still breathtaking. The cliffs are heavily undercut, so the view is straight down to the water, 
as well as straight ahead to the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island. There were kayakers exploring the caves beneath us and we enviously watched them paddling in and out. Birdlife abounds there too, mostly cormorants but also guillemots with their absurdly orange feet.
It was a steady plod uphill back to the parking lot. John had some problems with the trail. His back injuries have taken away much of his stamina, so we’d have to be careful when planning hikes. Edna seemed to handle it well.