Cape Arago State Park

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cape Arago State Park
Cape Arago

Cape Arago

location Coos County in Oregon (USA)
surface 54 ha
Geographical location 43 ° 18 '  N , 124 ° 24'  W Coordinates: 43 ° 18 '23 "  N , 124 ° 23' 55"  W
Cape Arago State Park (Oregon)
Cape Arago State Park
administration Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept.
f6

The Cape Arago State Park is a 54-hectare State Park in Coos County in the US state of Oregon .

geography

The park is 15 miles south of Coos Bay at the end of the Cape Arago Highway. Cape Arago is a sparsely overgrown, 60 m high cape, from which the view extends south to Cape Blanco . Two paths lead from the parking lot at the end of the highway to sandy beaches and tide pools and offer a view of the offshore Shell Island , which is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge .

Flora and fauna

Many marine birds such can look at the rocky coast and on the offshore rocks and island harlequin ducks , black oystercatcher and migratory birds like Black Turnstone , guillemots , Marmelalken , western grebe , red-necked grebe , red-throated divers , Pacific Loon , Meerscharben , Pinselscharben and numerous species of gulls are observed. In with rainforest wooded hinterland songbirds like living Townsend Warbler , Ruby Gold chicken , golden-crowned kinglet , brown creeper and crossbill . Ospreys , bald eagles and great blue herons can be spotted in the park in summer .

Shell Island is considered to be the northernmost place on the Pacific coast where elephant seals give birth , and California and Steller sea lions as well as seals live on the island.

history

Allegedly, the bay south of the cape was already an anchorage for Francis Drake on his circumnavigation of the world in June 1579. James Cook named the cape on his third voyage on March 12, 1778, after the name day of St. Gregory, Cape Gregory . In 1850 it was renamed Cape Arago in honor of the French physicist François Arago . The site originally belonged to the property of the timber baron Louis Simpson , who donated it to the state of Oregon on June 1, 1932. State park paths and other facilities were established by the Civilian Conservation Corps . During the Second World War, the site was used by the Coast Guard and the US Army as an observation post and radar station.

Tourist facilities

Visiting the park is free of charge. The park has a picnic area and several hiking trails. In the north it borders on Shore Acres State Park , 3 km further north is Sunset Bay State Park . The three parks are connected by a hiking trail that is also part of the Oregon Coast Trail .

literature

  • Jan Bannan: Oregon State Parks. A complete Recreation Guide. Seattle, Mountaineers Books, 2nd Edition 2002, ISBN 978-089886-794-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cape Arago Audubon Society: Local Birding. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 4, 2011 ; Retrieved August 23, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.capearagoaudubon.org
  2. ^ Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Retrieved August 25, 2011 .
  3. State Parks larger then 100 acres that have been given to state of Oregon. Retrieved August 23, 2011 .