From the crossroads Sappho on US-101, Hwy-113 leads north, linking up with Hwy-112 on a long and winding 40-mile detour through Clallam Bay (home of the nearly-world-famous Running Fish statue) to Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost tip of the continental United States. The highway is paved as far as the town of Neah Bay, a tiny and somewhat bedraggled community that’s the center of the Makah Indian Reservation. Salmon fishing, both by Makah and by visitors, is about the only activity here, though the tribe does have the impressive and modern Makah Museum (daily in summer, closed Mon. and Tues. the rest of the year; $5; 360/645-2711), one of the best anthropological museums in the state. Most of the displays are of artifacts uncovered in 1970, when a mudslide revealed the pristine remains of a 500-year-old coastal village—the Pompeii of the Pacific Northwest. Other galleries display finely crafted baskets, a full-scale longhouse complete with recorded chants, and a whaling canoe from which fearless Makah harpooners would jump into the surf and sew up the jaws of dying whales, to keep them from drowning and sinking. If you want a special souvenir, the museum gift shop displays and sells a variety of high-quality arts and crafts made by Makah people.
The Hwy-112/113 route twists along the rocky and wooded shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but reaching the actual cape itself isn’t difficult. From Neah Bay, the well-maintained western half of the Cape Loop Road winds along the Pacific to a parking area which gives access to a trail that brings you to the top of a 65-foot-high cliff overlooking the crashing surf and offshore Tatoosh Island. On a sunny day it’s a gorgeous vista, but if the weather’s less than perfect (which it often is) your time would be much better spent inside the Makah Museum.
