Travels in Cascadia: Flattery Will Get You Nowhere, Except Really, Really Northwest

Is that a face in the crook of the tree?

The trail might well have been designed by gnomes, or maybe even menehune in the rainforest. The slats look uneven and hand-hewn but were sturdy, allowing us to avoid the numerous mud bogs in this, one of the wettest environments in the western United States. It was the trail to Cape Flattery on the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington.

We had spent several days driving to the Seattle area to meet up with the students and my fellow professor. We were setting out on our exploration of the geology and anthropology of British Columbia and northern Washington, a journey that would occupy the next two weeks. The first day took us from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula where we would learn about the Makah people at Neah Bay. The tribal lands extend to the northwesternmost point of the lower 48 states. There has been a small bit of confusion about whether Cape Flattery is the westernmost point, but that honor goes to Cape Alava, five or six miles to the south and about 500 feet further west.

The cape once served as a fortification guarding the Strait of Juan de Fuca during World War II, but in the years since the area has been reclaimed by the forest. If you have walked this trail in the past, you may remember a very badly potholed road and parking area, but in the last few years, the access road was paved and is now a much gentler ride. Hiking the one-mile trail requires a $10/vehicle pass, available at the cultural center in Neah Bay.

According to at least one source, Cape Flattery was named by Captain James Cook in 1778, as he was "flattered" into thinking he had found the legendary Strait of Juan de Fuca, which he had, but didn't realize it. The small island off the coast (seen in the picture below) is called Tatoosh Island, named by Captain Meares in 1788 after meeting the Makah chief Tatooche at his summer encampment on the island. The island was selected for the construction of a lighthouse in 1849-50. The lighthouse was poorly constructed and was a miserable place to live, leading to tensions between some of the keepers. One story relates how the first principal keeper threw coffee into the face of an assistant. They decided to settle their differences with a gunfight. They fired at each other, each time missing, so they called it a draw and shook hands. Later, a third assistant admitted to removing the bullets from the shells in their guns.

The lighthouse was automated in 1977 and the island is under the jurisdiction of the Makah Nation. It is closed to visitation.

The geology of the cape is not apparent while hiking the trail. There is greenery and soil everywhere. The coastal cliffs reveal breccia and conglomerate that represent deposition in a marine basin near a rocky coast 42-44 million years ago. The source of the rocks was near Leech Creek on Vancouver Island across the Juan de Fuca Strait. The rocks were transported many miles by huge submarine landslides called turbidity currents.

The sea cliffs at the end of the trail are simply spectacular. There are a series of awesome sea caves, some of which are interconnected, accessible by kayaking (if you're nuts...). The trail ends in a group of wood platforms. Going any further down the sea cliffs is pretty dangerous.

The distinction of being the "northwesternmost" point is an artificial construct, but as long as we're going to point out such things, it might as well be as spectacular as possible, and Cape Flattery fits the bill nicely. I highly recommend this hike if you're ever in the area around Olympic National Park.

Information about this hike was gathered from several sources, including Carson and Babcock, Hiking Guide to Washington Geology, and Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources Open-file Report 2003-5.

The Tormented Lost Souls in Hades? Or Maybe the Denizens of the Largest (?) Sea Cave in the World

You've seen the bumper stickers, no matter where you've been in the country: Trees of Mystery, Wall Drug, South Dakota, and Mystery House of just about anywhere, and of course, Sea Lion Caves. I've never fallen for the allure of said bumper stickers, but Sea Lion Caves just happened to be 11 miles north of where I'm at this week, and there is definitely something geological about the place, so I gave in and checked it out yesterday.

The draw of the place is of course the fact that a great many Stellar's Sea Lions congregate inside the vast opening which is said to be the largest sea cave in the world. I pulled up and looked around. Big signs? Check. Gift Shop? Check. High ticket cost? Check. Yup, all the attributes of these kinds of attractions.

Still, the setting was beautiful. The site is on a high sea cliff on Oregon's Highway 101 eleven miles north of Florence, and just a mile or two from Heceta Head Light House and Devils Elbow State Park, two places I can highly recommend (they are part of a single park now).

From the gift shop, you walk down some steps and head down a paved path to the 200 foot elevator that drops you into the viewing area within the sea cave. There is no view or sense of what lies below, given the steepness of the cliffs.

I looked to see if anyone has photographed the sea caves from the outside, and couldn't find any, so I went to GoogleEarth for help. Here is what you can see from there...the cave has three openings and extends for 1315 feet, making it the third longest sea cave in the world. They also have a claim about being the largest sea cave in the world by volume, though others make claims as well: check this link out, for instance. I can't really judge one way or the other, but noticed that the Riko-Riko cave included a submerged portion of the cave in its measurement.

In any case, the cave at Sea Lion Caves is impressive. The ceiling of the cave is 125 feet up. The little tan-colored dots on the rocks in the first picture are full grown sea lions. I don't have any idea how they climb up onto those rocks.

The noise is other-worldly, and if I were hearing it without the context, I would swear it was the tortured lost souls in Hades crying out for mercy. The vast opening echoes and amplifies the noise of around 200 sea lions.


So, is it worth it? That's a tricky question to answer. The cavern is huge, and is fascinating from a geological perspective. The Stellar's Sea Lions are certainly a charismatic animal species, and it is no doubt a spectacle to see so many of them gathered into one place. But responsible stewardship of the species makes it absolutely important to not bother or interfere with the animals, and that means that there is no exploration of the caves. One gets only the one view from the platform. There are some interesting exhibits to spice up the experience, including a fossilized skeleton of one of the sea lions that is at least hundreds of years old, and a full skeleton of another. There is a stairway that climbs to the third and higher entrance to the cave that provides a fine view north towards Heceta Head Lighthouse.

It's a capitalistic enterprise, so they presumably charge what the market would bear ($14 for adults and less for kids), and if I had a large family I would balk at the price. Still, I would say that it was worth the price to see such a huge cave, despite the limitations. It's the kind of place that I appreciate and am impressed by, but I pretty much need to see it only once.

So, don't be afraid to check it out if you are in the area. If you want to see the sea lions, but don't have the monetary resources to pay the admission fee, stop in the pullout just north of the parking lot and look to the base of the cliff. I've seen a big crew of sea lions down there on every occasion I've been by (below).

Where the Sierra Nevada Rises From the Sea: The Granitic Rocks of Garrapata State Park

We've reached the next beach on our exploration of the most beautiful coastline in the world, the one extending from Big Sur to Bodega Bay in Central California (register your arguments in the comments about your own interpretation of "most beautiful"!). It's called Garrapata State Park, and it offers some nice shorelines carved into the granitic rock of the Salinian Block, the displaced terrane of Sierra Nevada rocks that now forms a mountain range sloping directly into the sea.

Garrapata doesn't quite have the prominence of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, or Point Lobos. There are no visitor centers and no campgrounds, and in fact, few tourist facilities at any kind. No parking lots or admission booths. Just a table or two and some fine trails. It is pretty much a wilderness park, aside from the intrusion of Highway 1.

The coastal terrace at Garrapata was covered in wildflowers despite the late season when we visited. Above we can see an Indian Paintbrush. I'd try to identify it, wondering if it was the rare Monterey variety, but became aware that with more than 200 species, I probably wouldn't be successful at nailing it down.

The rocky coastline reveals some of the best exposures of the granitic rocks of the Salinian Block. I use the term 'granitic' because the petrologists who study igneous rocks are rather specific when they classify the light colored grainy plutonic rocks that normal people call 'granite'. The proportions of the minerals that make up the rock (quartz, orthoclase feldspar, plagioclase feldspar) determine whether the rock is granite, granodiorite, tonalite, diorite and others. On this part of the coast, the rock is identified as the porphyritic granodiorite of Monterey. Granodiorite contains a higher proportion of plagioclase than granite has. The term 'porphyritic' means that the rock contains much larger crystals of feldspar in a finer matrix of other crystals,

The rock formed as molten plutons deep in the crust. The rocks cooled slowly over thousands of years, allowing the crystals to grow to visible size. The granitic rock is monolithic while it remains at depth, but when it is exposed by erosion, the release of pressure allows the rock to expand. It does, but not like a marshmallow. It breaks into vertical and horizontal fractures called joints.

Ocean waves do a great job of exploiting the joints and fissures, tearing the rocks up and producing rugged sea cliffs and offshore rock islands called sea stacks.When waves impact against the rocks, they can exert pressure on the order of several tons per square foot, and air is compressed in fractures to the same degree.

Waves can widen joint systems, forming sea caves, like those seen below.. I don't know how far the caves at Garrapata extend, but some on the north coast are hundreds of feet long, and navigable by kayak.

The kid in me wants so badly to explore caves like these. I don't think the California coast had much of a history with pirates, but I could imagine treasures being hidden in the backs of some of these caves.

Garrapata State Park also exposes an excellent example of a nonconformity. Unconformities of all kinds are buried surfaces where erosion once took place. A nonconformity develops when plutonic or metamorphic rocks are exposed at the Earth's surface by erosion. Later, the surface was covered with sediments, in this case conglomerate deposited by streams flowing across the coastal terrace. Wave erosion later exposed the relationship seen in the photo below.

Terraces are not especially common along the Big Sur coast, but a modest one can be explored at Garrapata. Terraces result when the back and forth of wave action on a beach forms a more or less horizontal wave-cut bench. If sea level falls or the land rises, the bench is lifted above the wave zone to form a flat surface surrounded by coastal cliffs leading down to the water below. The terrace was covered with colorful vegetation due to the stable deep soils.

It isn't maybe fully recognized by most tourists, but every sea stack and small island on the California coast is part of California Coastal National Monument, established in 2000 by presidential proclamation. There are around 20,000 such rocks along the 1,100 miles of the California shoreline!

Our last little discovery of the day was a small waterfall that developed where Soberanes Creek flows across the coastal terrace and trickles into small cove. It was a colorful intersection of rock, water, and life.

Next stop: the point of the sea wolves!

Addendum: one of my Facebook friends pointed out what a terrible name Garrapata actually is: Tick. It reminds me of Avenida de Las Pulgas near Menlo Park in the Bay Area: the Avenue of the Fleas. It's really true: all place names sound better in Spanish!