Welcome to the Puget Sound Lighthouse #1: Point
Wilson cache.
It was a foggy morning on April 1,
1921 when Keeper William J. Thomas of the Point Wilson Lighthouse
heard a sickening grinding noise. Though he couldn't see anything
through the fog, he knew instantly there was trouble in the water.
He quickly sent word to Port Townsend to send help.
What
Keeper Thomas heard was the slamming of the crowded passenger liner
Governor into the freighter West Hartland. The Governor soon began
to sink in 600 feet of water. Because of Thomas' quick actions, all
but eight people were rescued from the wreck.
Point
Wilson marks the west entrance into the Puget Sound. It is the
turning point from the Strait of Juan de Fuca into Admiralty
Inlet.
The
turn was first marked by a church bell. Recognizing that the point
was often shrouded by fog, in 1865, Captain J.W. Sheldon donated a
ship's bell to the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in the town of Port
Townsend with the condition the bell be rung on foggy days. Several
years later, a steamer used the sound of the bell to guide it into
Port Townsend harbor. An evangelist on board, John Yates, was so
touched that he wrote the hymn, "The Harbor Bell."
Eventually, a light station
was built at Point Wilson, two miles northwest of Port Townsend.
The original light was a 46-foot frame tower rising from the
keeper's dwelling with a fog signal building nearby. It first shown
its light, a fixed white light with a red flash every 20 seconds,
on December 15, 1879. The light could be seen for 13 miles. A
rotating apparatus replaced the original light in 1894.
High
tides and stormy weather took their toll on the sandy beach on
which the tower was built. By 1904 much of the beach had eroded and
threatened the tower. The problem was temporarily fixed by 1500
tons of rock reinforcement piled on the east and west sides of the
tower. However, the tower couldn't stay there for long.
The
current lighthouse was built in 1914, and the original lighthouse
continued as the keepers' dwelling minus its tower. The new
lighthouse feature a 49-foot tower built in an octagonal shape to
reduce wind pressure. The light still shines from a fourth-order
Fresnel lens, a white light on for 15 seconds, then off 5 seconds,
with one red flash during the occultation. The light was automated
in 1976.
Like
Point Bonita and Point Loma, the light went out during World War II
as a defense to nearby Fort Worden and the Puget Sound
Today,
a computer, located at the Coast Guard Air Station at Port Angeles,
maintains the light. The keepers' quarters were occupied by Coast
Guard personnel until 2000. During the winters of 2005 and 2006,
high winds and waves pummeled the low-lying lighthouse property
flooding the basement of the keepers' dwelling and ripping the fog
horn from its soundwall. The State of Washington has considered
purchasing the property from the Coast Guard and combining it with
nearby Fort Worden State Park, however, in 2007 the scheduled
review of this proposal was delayed. Moving the lighthouse and
associated buildings, which will likely cost between $3 and $5
million dollars, is considered the only long-term solution for
saving the station. In the meantime, the Coast Guard is filling in
the holes that have developed in the wall of rock armor that has
been built around the point.
The
Cache
This is
one of six caches hidden to complete the
Lighthouses of Puget Sound series.You can find
one or all of them.
Most of
the way to the cache is on logging roads or dirt paths. The last
20-100 feet are off trail. There are some moderate elevation
changes, up to 400 feet. The forest floor can be mushy and soft.
There is no serious bush whacking needed. Expect poor GPS reception
under the tree cover, the caches are not cleverly hidden but are
camo painted and not visible from the path.
The way
to the cache does not require heavy bushwhacking. You might need to
walk through some knee high low brush. If you are going to do heavy
bushwhacking, perhaps going a bit farther down the trail will
reveal an easy way in.
A paper
map of the trails can be found here.