Warning: there are bits of geography and history worked into this post. I'll try not to make it boring.
The Pacific NW really is an amazing place. There are so many beautiful little gems to explore. The Dungeness Spit seems to be yet another one of those gems. Since I had never heard of it before this trip, I decided I would look into it a bit more. Here's what Wikipedia had to say ...
First the geography:
"The Dungeness Spit is a 5.5 mile long sand spit jutting out from the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula ... into the Strait of Juan de Fuca ... It is the longest natural sand spit in the United States."
Next the history:
"The spit was first recorded by Europeans during the Spanish 1790 Quimper expedition. British explorer George Vancouver named the landform in 1792, writing "The low sandy point of land, which from its great resemblance to Dungeness in the British Channel, I called New Dungeness."]
And now for the pictures:-)!!
I believe this outing started as a Scout activity, but ended up being more of a fathers-and-sons outing.
The group stayed the night at the Dungeness Recreation Area and then headed for the lighthouse in the morning.
The Dungeness Spit is home to the New Dungeness Lighthouse, which was once run by United States Coast Guard. Apparently in 1976 an automatic light was installed which it sounds like removed the need for any management of the facility. Since 1994, though, the lighthouse has been staffed and maintained by the volunteer "New Dungeness Light Station Association", and is open to the public year round.
And for a fun fact (again from Wikipedia):
"In December 2001 a heavy winter storm forced water over the spit. The next morning the spit was split in three places, and vehicles supplying the lighthouse were not able to traverse the spit for about a month."
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