Cape Lookout State Park
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Cape Lookout State Park
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 Cape lookout |
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| location | Tillamook County in Oregon (USA) | |
| surface | 815 ha | |
| Geographical location | 45 ° 21 ' N , 123 ° 58' W | |
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| administration | Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept. | |
The Cape Lookout State Park is a State Park in Tillamook County in the US state of Oregon . The 815 hectare park is 19 km southwest of Tillamook and stretches 8 km along the Pacific coast from Netarts Spit to Cape Lookout.
geography
The 120 m high Cape Lookout, which is only 500 m wide at its base and protruding over 2 km into the Pacific, is the not yet eroded remnant of basalt rock of an approximately 15 million year old volcano. In the north of the park, the almost 5 km long, narrow sandy headland of Netarts Spit separates the flat Netarts Bay from the Pacific. Coastal erosion from winter storms increased sharply in the park since the 1980s. The loss of one to two meters of land per year was greater than the washings of sand in summer, so that camping sites, picnic tables and two toilet houses were destroyed or had to be moved. Since fixed coastal fortifications are out of the question in this near-natural park, the erosion had to be stopped by artificial dune embankments and the planting of beach grass .
Flora and fauna
The park has an annual rainfall of around 2500 mm, so that it is partly still covered with a dense, untouched rainforest . Above all at Cape Lookout there is a primeval forest of Sitka spruce and giant arborvitae as well as sword fern and maidenhair fern . As early as the 1930s, Stanley G. Jewitt , Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service , counted 154 bird species in the park area.
history
Cape Lookout got its name in the late 18th century from the British explorer John Meares . In 1935 the US Lighthouse Service donated 378 hectares of land to the state for the construction of a state park, and the Louis W. Hill Family Foundation donated the property to the Netarts Spit. Because of the high number of bird species, the head of the State Park Commission, Samuel Boardman, bought wet meadows for the park, which had little tourist value but are of high ecological value as bird breeding grounds. In 1939 a unit of the Civilian Conservation Corps paved the way to the top of the cape. During the Second World War, on October 12, 1943, a B-17 bomber crashed on a patrol flight on the Cape, which was shrouded in fog that day, only one crew member survived. A plaque commemorates the accident. After the Second World War, the park was expanded from 1952 to include an access road, a large campground and other facilities. In 1988 the park was given its present size by donating another 17 hectares of land.
Tourist facilities
There is a fee to visit the park. The park has a large campsite on the beach with 38 RV and over 170 tent sites. Cape Lookout is part of the Three Capes Scenic Route . A total of 12 km of hiking and walking trails lead through the park. A 4 km long footpath leads to the top of the cape, which is considered a good point for whale watching. A section of the Oregon Coast Trail runs through the park. In the north of the park on Netarts Bay there is a recreation area for day visitors, among other things water sports such as boating and kayaking are possible in Netarts Bay.
literature
Jan Bannan: Oregon State Parks. A complete Recreation Guide. Seattle, Mountaineer Books, 2nd Edition 2002, ISBN 978-0-89886-794-7
Web links
- Park's website
- Cape Lookout State Park on the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
Individual evidence
- ^ Cape Lookout State Park Master Planning Process. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 1, 2011 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Land donations to state parks in Oregon. Retrieved April 1, 2011 .
- ^ History of Netarts. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 19, 2011 ; Retrieved April 1, 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.
