Cape Alava, in Clallam County, Washington, U.S.A.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, is the westernmost point in the contiguous 48 states, with a longitude of (during low tide and walking out to the west side of Tskawahyah Island). The westernmost point is located in Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park is located in the U.S. state of Washington, in the Olympic Peninsula. The park can be divided into four basic regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west side temperate rainforest and the forests of the drier east side. U.S...

 and the Ozette Indian Reservation. Cape Alava is accessible via a 3-mile boardwalk hike from a ranger station in the park.

Nearby Cape Flattery and Cape Blanco

Cape Blanco (Oregon)

Cape Blanco is a prominent headland on the Pacific Ocean coast of southwestern Oregon in the United States, forming the westernmost point in the state. It contests with Cape Alava in Washington for the title of westernmost point in the contiguous United States...

 in southern Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 are also very close longitudinally to being the westernmost points in the contiguous 48 states.

Name

The cape was named after the Spaniard Don José Manuel de Álava (born in Vitoria

Vitoria-Gasteiz

Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital city of the province of Álava and of the autonomous community of the Basque Country in northern Spain with a population of 235,661 people. It is the second largest Basque city...

, January 1, 1743) for his role as commissioner during the solution of the conflict of Nootka

Nootka Convention

The Nootka Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s which averted a war between the two empires over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America.The claims of Spain dated back...

 in 1794.

History

In early 1834, a Japanese ship, the Hojun Maru, made landfall at Cape Alava after a 14-month drift on the Pacific Ocean. It was supposed to bring rice to Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

, but was then carried away by a storm. At the time of arrival near Cape Alava, only three of its crew were alive (the youngest being Otokichi

Otokichi

was a Japanese castaway originally from the area of Onoura near Mihama, on the west coast of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture.- Biography :...

). They were then looked after and briefly enslaved by Makah.

The Cape became the western terminus of the newly-created Pacific Northwest Trail

Pacific Northwest Trail

The Pacific Northwest Trail , now designated as the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, is a 1200 mile hiking trail running from the Continental Divide in Montana , through the northern panhandle of Idaho, to the Pacific coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula...

 with the passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.

Geology

The beaches surrounding the trail terminus are composed of a variety of different rock types and formations

Geologic formation

A formation or geological formation is the fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy. A formation consists of a certain number of rock strata that have a comparable lithology, facies or other similar properties...

.

The rich mixture is a result of the combined erosive

Erosion

Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...

 power of the ocean and relatively recent glacial activity. According to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, the area's sediment

Sediment

Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....

s are classified as Unconsolidated Deposition, translating to the geological equivalent of a grab bag. More finely, the deposits are listed as “Quaternary Sediments, Dominantly Glacial Drift

Moraine

A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...

, includes alluvium

Alluvium

Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...

”. The Quaternary

Quaternary

The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...

 time period dates to the end of the most recent ice age

Wisconsin glaciation

The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....

, roughly 10,000 to 14,000 BCE. A geologic map of Washington shows the unique nature of such sediments being exposed to the full grinding force of the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. There are many such areas scattered about the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

, yet very few areas on the unprotected Washington coast.

External links

• Hiking to Cape Alava from OutdoorDB.org

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