Friday, April 16, 2010

Iceberg Point







There's not much beach along this spectacular stretch of rocky coast at the south end of Lopez Island, but there sure is a great view in pretty much every direction. The bluffs of Whidbey Island are seen in the east. Smith Island is southeast. Dungeness Spit and the Olympic Mountains are lost in clouds to the southwest. San Juan Island and Cattle Point are to the west, obscured by the haze of the late afternoon sun.


The metamorphic bedrock is littered with granitic boulders from Canada and furrowed with north-south grooves, both the legacy of glaciation a mere 16,000 years ago (give or take a few millenia). Sedums, lichens, and other small, but hardy, plants cling to irregularities in the rock surfaces.

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