Hermosa Point

Tulalip Bay occupies a big bowl in the glacial landscape – but its rim is low enough on the southwestern side to let Puget Sound spill in (or Tulalip Bay to spill out?). Hermosa Point marks the northern entrance to the bay. Waves from the south have eroded the point for centuries, feeding sediment into both the bay and along the coast to the north. But there’s not much sediment to feed. Erosion of the glacial till has left a coarse armored lag on the surface of the beach in front of the point itself and bulkheads have limited erosion of the glacial drift in the 60’ bluff. The older pre-Vashon sediments that crop out on the lower bluff north of the point are also exposed on the sediment-starved beach in big sweeping arcs.