Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Tsoo-Yess Beach






Just south of the rocky cliffs of Cape Flattery are two wonderful sandy barrier beaches. Hobuck and Tsoo-Yess (Sooes) Beaches are both spits - the Hobuck at the mouth of the Waatch River and Tsoo-Yess at the mouth of the Sooes River (not surprisingly the maps I've seen alternate between native and anglicized place names).

The beaches are basically crescent shaped pocket beaches, contained within Makah bay, but both are further modified by additional rocky headlands and outcrops (Aerial, courtesy of Google), as well as the stream mouths.

On the 26th of January, 1700, when the Cascadia Subduction Zone last slipped, the resulting tsunami may have overtopped these low, flat beaches. Makah tribal accounts recall the devastating impacts of the wave in the Waatch River Valley (USGS link).

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