Dungeness Spit

The name sounds like expectoration from some ancient Cretaceous beast.  In a way it’s true because two tongues of land, moving and growing, extend into the Strait of San De Fuca, near Port Angeles, Washington, caused by strong natural forces.  In these aerial photos, see the Port Angeles harbor and the “breakwater” around it.  It’s a natural spit protecting ferries sailing to Victoria, Canada, across the Strait.  To the east of Port Angeles, see Dungeness Spit.  (Click any picture to enlarge it.)

Dungeness Spit

It was formed by ocean tides and waves in the Strait of San De Fuca, that wide connecting throat between the Pacific Ocean and its great inland extension, called Puget Sound.  Every day, and usually twice a day, tides force a huge flow of ocean water into and out of Puget Sound, which acts like a huge breathing lung.  Over thousands of years these flows, aided by storms, have created Port Angeles Harbor and Dungeness Spit.  

From the ridge top looking down on the Spit it is easy to imagine severe weather, strong currents, and high tides that formed it.  Huge logs are piled on its shore, and many cubic miles of glacial deposits have been moved from the shore far out into the Strait.  

Extending five miles from shore, the Spit can be walked its entire length, but not always.  Only when tide is low and waves are mild can a person expect to return the way she came, or return at all.    

Once out on the Spit, I look back, southward, to the Olympic Mountains and deep snow that I came to see.  Actually, there is only one-fourth of average snow accumulation this year, and getting there might have been disappointing.  

It’s hard to imagine huge trees floating in from the Ocean or out from the Sound and being washed onto this narrow Spit, while elsewhere along the shore of the Strait, few big logs are seen.  Yet their artforms against the sky speak of power and fragility, a small finger of land grasping what a hard rocky shore could not.   

In case you have wondered whether those ocean trash pictures we have all bee seeing on PBS are real, manufacture, or isolated, here are two examples of trash washed up on Dungeness Spit.  Those small white things are plastic. 

On this wild and barren strip of sand, cobles, and logs, no one can live permanently, but still it needs a ruler, and today I met King Seagull, ruler of Dungeness Spit.  

So it was, while returning to Port Angeles, Washington, to see the average 38 feet of snow at Hurricane Ridge that I walked on Dungeness Spit instead, because the road to Hurricane Ridge was closed, and conditions on the Spit were perfect.

Michael Angerman has prepared an interactive map showing my nightly stops.   Michael's Map      Please open the map and notice it showing my current location in Corvallis, Oregon, where I am enjoying a visit with Michael and Michele before heading back home to Pasadena. 

This will be my last blog post.  Thanks to all of you who have followed and have given interesting comments.  Until next trip, farewell, or see you soon.  

Sharon