Cape Lookout headland
— — a finger of forest pointed at the open Pacific.
Not only on a wall.
“A two-mile basalt headland that runs further into the Pacific than any other cape on this coast. The trail to the tip threads Sitka spruce older than the road that brought you here, opening at the end to a 400-foot drop on three sides at once. Grey whales pass under in winter and again in spring. The wind never quite stops, and the view never quite resolves into anything you can name.
Cape Lookout headland, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cape Lookout is a basalt headland on the north Oregon coast, inside Cape Lookout State Park west of Tillamook. The cape extends roughly two miles west into the Pacific, further offshore than any other point on the Oregon coast, and rises about 400 feet from sea to clifftop. The Cape Trail runs 2.5 miles each way through old-growth Sitka spruce and western hemlock to the tip. Netarts Bay lies to the north and Sand Lake to the south, both protected estuaries on the Three Capes Scenic Loop.
The cape sits broadside to the open Pacific, with nothing between it and Asia. Wind speeds at the tip routinely exceed those measured at the beach. Marine fog sometimes clings to the headland after burning off below, leaving the trail in cloud while the surf shows clear two hundred feet under your feet. The spruce here grow tall and straight in the lee. Out near the tip they bend with the prevailing weather, shaped by it.
The Cape Trail is roughly 5 miles round trip, with about 800 feet of total elevation change. It is a year-round walk, though winter mud and steep cliff drops make footing matter. Whale watching is best from late December through January, when grey whales migrate south, and from March through May when they return north with calves. The trailhead lot fills by mid-morning in summer, so weekday early starts are the quiet ones.