After the Hoh Rain Forest, we pushed on to Aberdeen, Washington, where we stayed the night. We had a lot on tap for Day 11, chasing Lewis and Clark along the Washington coast.
The first stop of the day was to North Head Lighthouse in the southwest corner of Washington state near the mouth of the Columbia River. You can read all about our visit to North Head Lighthouse here. After our visit to the lighthouse (you can here about all the lighthouses we visited or saw on Podcast Episode 21 – Northwest Lighthouses), we were back pursuing Lewis and Clark.
Just down the road from North Head Lighthouse is the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse which is located near the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.
The center is located in the Cape Disappointment State Park. Like the interpretive center in Great Falls, there’s lots of neat stuff here to help you learn about this part of the Lewis and Clark journey. There’s also some fabulous views of the river and ocean.
Cape Disappointment is the furthest point west for the Corps of Discovery and the Interpretive Center is built on the remains of Fort Canby which was used for coastal defense of the Columbia River along with other forts on each side of the river. There still some small gun batteries there that you can wander around and see.
From the mouth of the Columbia River we moved inland. Our next stop was Fort Columbia State Park. We drove around and explored the original batteries there, which were active for almost fifty years during the first part of the 20th century. We also admired the historic buildings that still remain. Two of those are available to be vacation rental. The Lewis and Clark group passed through the area that is now occupied by Fort Columbia.
We then stopped at Station Camp where the Corps got their first view of the Pacific in November 1805. There are lots of interpretive displays here that you can wander around and see that explain the Native American history, information about the Corps of Discovery, and the 19th century canning settlement that was started here by Patrick Mcdowell. The church that he built is still there and is still used to celebrate Mass once a week. You also have a great view of Astoria, Oregon across the river.
Continuing on inland (which is actually backwards from how Lewis and Clark visited this area), we went to the Dismal Niche location, where the Corps camped and was pinned down for six days by severe winter storms. Apparently it was plenty miserable, hence the name.
As we continued inland to our next destination, we also tried to find Pillar Rock, which was listed in the journals of Lewis and Clark that Sue was looking through. We found the road that we thought would take us to where we could see it . It ended up being a 13 mile long twisting, turning road, that went above the river, by lots of houses and signs that said “No Trespassing”. It finally dead-ended and we had to turn around.
We got glimpses through the trees, and at one point, we saw a short rock out in the river that had some equipment on top. We were kind of confused because it didn’t look anything like what we had seen in some of the pictures, but there didn’t seem to be anything else out in the river that looked like Pillar Rock.
With all the threatening signs, we were uneasy about stopping and getting out and trying to look. On the way back, Sue did a little bit more research on her phone and found out that the rock and been shortened and equipment had been added, so apparently that was the rock. Oh well, no pictures, better luck to us next time.
That was the end of our sightseeing for Day 11. we continued on to Kelso where we rested in preparation for a highly anticipated trip on Day 12!
More pictures from Cape Disappointment State Park and Fort Canby
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Photos from Fort Columbia
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Photos from Station Camp
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Map to Cape Disappointment State Park:
Map to Station Camp. It doesn’t show up on Google Maps very well, but the map below shows you the location. If you click on the satellite view in the bottom left, you can see the church from the pictures above right in the lower middle. That should help you find it.