The far corner · About 2 hours from the estate
Cape Flattery & Neah Bay
Two hours west, at the end of the road, the continent runs out. Cape Flattery is the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States — cedar boardwalks stepping down through wind-bent forest to cliff-edge decks above sea caves and green, surging water. This is the sovereign land of the Makah Tribe, who welcome visitors and ask a simple courtesy in return: buy the pass, keep to the trail, and take the day at the village’s pace.
- Drive
- About 2 hours
- Pass
- Makah Recreation Pass — $20 per vehicle, per year
- Trail
- 1.5 miles round trip — boardwalks and stairs
- Provisions
- Limited in Neah Bay — fuel up beforehand
Getting there
Two roads reach Neah Bay: State Route 112, curling along the Strait with the water at your shoulder, or US 101 past Lake Crescent and up SR 113 — often the quicker choice, because slides and roadwork are part of 112’s character. Glance at WSDOT’s alerts for the road before committing to the scenic line.
Buy the Makah Recreation Pass in the village — the mini mart, the museum, and the marina all sell it, as does a seasonal booth near the trailhead — and hang it in the windshield. It isn’t a parking fee; it’s the tribe’s permission to visit its lands, $20 per vehicle for the calendar year.
Provisions run village-paced: Washburn’s general store, a mini mart with fuel, wood-fired pizza at Linda’s, and — when the smoker is going — Take Home Fish Company’s celebrated salmon. Top up the tank in Port Angeles and carry the day’s water anyway.
The cape
From the trailhead it’s three-quarters of a mile each way — cedar boardwalks, stairs, and honest mud in the shoulder seasons — to four viewing decks staggered along the headland. Below, the sea has cut caves clean through the rock; half a mile offshore, Tatoosh Island carries a lighthouse first lit in 1857; gray whales and sea lions work the kelp lines beneath the platforms.
The trail is open from dawn to half an hour after sunset, dogs on leash, and the last deck is the one to wait for. An hour and a half covers the walk, though the picnic tables argue for longer.
The museum
In 1970, winter storms peeled back the earth at Ozette and exposed a Makah village sealed by a mudslide centuries before. The tribe led the excavation with Washington State University for eleven years, and the result — more than 55,000 artifacts, from whaling gear to woven cedar — fills the Makah Museum, alongside full-size longhouse and canoe replicas. Open daily 10 to 5, about $10, no photography in the galleries. It is, we think, the finest small museum on the Peninsula — and the context that makes the cape mean more.
Sand for the afternoon
- Hobuck Beach — a mile of walkable sand on Makah Bay, the family choice: surf camps in summer, room to run, parking on the pass.
- Shi Shi Beach — the wilder sibling: two miles of famously muddy trail, then open sand stretching toward the sea stacks of Point of the Arches. A day hike on the recreation pass (overnights need a park permit); take the tide chart seriously, and save it for the sure-footed.