Making a sunshine circuit of Cape Disappointment

We arrived at the old schoolhouse around dusk. This would be our last evening in Washington.

Our base was almost a gateway to an area called Cape Disappointment. It turns out that an English fur trader John Meares had named it when he was looking for a route past the Columbia's river bar. The name stuck, and later an American Captain Robert Gray found the adjoining river passage and named it Columbia, after his ship. The Lewis and Clark expedition to map the western part of the the United States also visited the promontory as part of their concluding stages.

It's an area known for shipwrecks and has two lighthouses, the second built because not all ships could see the first.


We had lucky sunny weather for this area, which has over 100 days of fog per year. Even in the time we were there, we could see the speed with which the weather could turn about, from misty fog, to bright sunshine.

For us, a journey through this state park was a delightful start to the day, before we crossed the river into Oregon.