Qualla: Cape Alava

Cape Alava: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anastacia12182, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk far enough west in the contiguous United States and you will run out of land at a rocky, wave-battered headland on the Olympic Peninsula. Cape Alava holds that distinction -- the westernmost point in the lower forty-eight, at least at low tide when you can scramble out to the western edge of Tskawahyah Island. The difference between Cape Alava and its rival, Cape Flattery to the north, amounts to roughly five seconds of longitude, about 360 feet. But the arguments over coordinates miss the point. Cape Alava is not remarkable because of where it sits on a map. It is remarkable because of what has washed up here, what has been carved into its rocks, and how difficult it remains to reach.

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Image: Anastacia12182 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cape Alava: Three Miles Through the Green

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region, Public domain. There is no road to Cape Alava. The only way in is a three-mile boardwalk trail from the Lake Ozette Ranger Station, threading through temperate rainforest so dense that the canopy blocks most of the sky. The trail was designated a National Recreation Trail in 1981 and serves as ...

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Image: U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region | Public domain

Cape Alava: A Basque Name on a Makah Shore

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anastacia12182, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cape carries the name of Don Jose Manuel de Alava, a Basque diplomat born in Vitoria in 1743 who served as commissioner during the resolution of the Nootka Crisis in 1794. It is a European name laid over land the Makah people had inhabited for thousands of years. The Makah vi...

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Image: Anastacia12182 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cape Alava: The Hojun Maru

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GerthMichael, CC BY-SA 3.0. In early 1834, a mastless, rudderless Japanese rice transport ship drifted onto the beach near Cape Alava after fourteen months adrift on the Pacific Ocean. The Hojun Maru had been bound for Edo with a cargo of rice when a storm broke the vessel and blew it off course. Of the ori...

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Image: GerthMichael | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cape Alava: Ice Age Grab Bag

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA, CC BY 2.0. The beaches around Cape Alava are a geologist's puzzle box. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources classifies the sediments here as Unconsolidated Deposition -- Quaternary deposits dating to the end of the last ice age, roughly 10,000 to 14,000 BCE. The technical de...

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Image: John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA | CC BY 2.0