Cape Lookout National Seashore
Carteret County, North Carolina
June 2023
An unusually perfect weekend weather forecast for early June in coastal North Carolina inspired a last minute camping trip to Cape Lookout National Seashore. We boarded the 9:35am ferry Saturday morning at the NPS visitor's center at Shell Point on Harkers Island and headed towards South Core Banks and the Diamond Lady.
A roughly half mile hike past the hustle and bustle of the gift shop/bathrooms/UTV rentals/beach shuttle, past the Cape Lookout lighthouse and across the dunes, we reach the "lighthouse" beach. This section of beach is blocked off from the cacophony of beach buggies, trucks and UTVs and reserved for day use visitors and beach campers. We began setting up our North Face Wawona 6 tent. We have had this tent for less than a year and it is a little more complicated to set up than our previous tent, so it usually still takes us a few minutes extra to get our bearings with it. It is a fantastic tent and we have really enjoyed using it on our excursions and adventures. Once it is up, it makes a spacious and sturdy home for us.
The nice thing about this beach camping experience is, although you have to carry everything in, it is a relatively manageable hike so you can carry more gear than you normally would on a true backpacking trip. Also, water access at the bathroom area means not having to carry in all the water you need which saves a ton of weight and complications. But here is the catch to beach camping if you haven't done it before: you have to be prepared for sand to get EVERYWHERE. I mean everywhere. You will be cleaning sand out of gear and your body for a week after camping on the beach. Also, sand is deceptively hard to sleep on... so bring a good sleeping pad and pillow.
After setting up camp, the afternoon was taken up with beach walks, shelling, bird watching and attempting to swim in a surprisingly still too cold Atlantic Ocean. The beach was not too crowded for such a beautiful weekend. Apparently people missed the forecast, or had more pressing matters.
Dinner consisted of a camp staple: Dinty Moore beef stew cooked over a single burner Coleman propane stove. The huge vestibule of the North Face Wawona 6 makes for a perfect spot to get out of the wind and cook some dinner.
Sunsets are magical on Cape Lookout. So are sunrises, but we will get to them later. The sun sets behind the lighthouse, making for some stunning scenes and landscapes. After the sun goes down, and long after the last ferry has shuttled the day visitors off the island, South Core Banks belongs to the night sky, the ghost crabs and the intrepid overnight bipeds. Searching for ghost crabs in the dark with a flashlight is practically a right of passage. The stars in the sky are prolific and are only interrupted but the regular flash of the lighthouse,.
Time for a little aside. I spend a lot of time at Cape Lookout. I'd like to relate some of the history and social implications of Cape Lookout National Seashore. Cape Lookout National Seashore was established on March 10, 1966 and is composed of a total area of 28,243 acres.The nearly half a million visitors per year can visit North Core Banks, South Core Banks or Shackleford Banks. The current Cape Lookout lighthouse (The Diamond Lady) was commissioned in 1857 and finished in 1859. There was a previous lighthouse that was built in 1812 but at only 100 feet was too short to ever be effective and was immediately obsolete.
The Cape Lookout lighthouse is 163 feet tall. It was originally outfitted with a first order Fesnel lens that was powered by whale oil and later kerosene. The Fresnel lens was eventually modernized with a high powered airport beacon light when electricity reached Cape Lookout. The lighthouse no longer serves its original purpose as a navigation aid and the light now is a LED system that is more or less decorative in function. The lights "characteristic" is to flash every 15 seconds and it's "day marking" is a black and white diamond pattern.
The other big draw on Cape Lookout National Seashore is the wild horses of Shackleford Banks. The prevailing theory is that these horses arrived from Spanish shipwrecks in the 16th or 17th centuries and DNA testing does show that these horses are descended from horses from the Iberian peninsula. We will never know for certain the origin of these horses. Today's population is maintained between 120-130 horses along the almost 9 mile length of the island and are managed by a special group within the National Park Service.
The horse population is managed primarily through contraception. In the past, larger horse populations had not been sustainable and the horses were not staying healthy. Other than contraception and monitoring, not much other human interference happens with the horses. The horses are not fed or watered by people and are left to weather storms on their own. The horses eat natural vegetation on the island and drink from one of the few freshwater ponds on the island or use their hooves to dig for groundwater. They are incredibly adapted and resilient animals.
When the federal government aquistioned the land for Cape Lookout in the 1960's, it was not without controversy. Locals had used these barrier islands for generations as fish camps and even before that as land based whaling camps. Until a hurricane blew open Bardens Inlet in the 1930's there was even a permanent settlement called "Diamond City" in the area. While the people who used the banks for fish camps did not "own" the land they were not happy when the homes they built there were taken away or no longer accessible. Perhaps the situation could have been handled better at the time but the federal government doesn't always have the best track record of handling situations with delicacy. I completely understand the sentiment of the Down East families that lost access to the banks but looking back now the establishment of Cape Lookout National Seashore is probably the only thing that stopped this natural wonder from eventually being developed and transformed into a playground for the wealthy littered with three-story beach houses and gaudy condominium buildings like so much of the rest of the North Carolina coast. The painful vacating of Core Banks by the people of Down East preserved these banks they hold so dear.
Aside aside, let's get back to our current story. Sunrises. Maybe the only thing more stunning than a sunset. Sunrises over the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Lookout are especially magical. No two are ever alike and every one is equally fantastic. To get the entire experience you have to get up well before traditionally recognized day break. The pre-dawn hours. Bardo, The light between this world and the next. In order to fully appreciate the sun break the horizon you have to experience the world in the soft light of pre-dawn. The earth is waking up. I hear lesser terns calling first. Other birds will join them soon.
The sun comes over the curvature of the earth breaking the soft light and beginning to cast brighter rays. The sunrise continuously evolves. Different every minute. Every second. Every moment. Pictures don't do it justice. Some people find God in a church. Sunrises are where I commune with the divine.
The birds really begin to fly the shoreline with the rising sun. I am treated to the energetic and acrobatic lesser terns dancing erratically though the sky - occasionally crashing seemingly haphazardly into the ocean but emerging successfully with a small fish. One of my favorite birds - the black skimmers - also make an appearance. More like a streamlined fighter jet squadron and flying in formation with military-like precision these birds cruise their way down the shoreline well under altitude detectable on radar. Flying just above the water, sometimes close enough for their wing tips to touch the water as they flap them, the aptly black skimmers skim the water with their specially adapted longer lower beak until it hits a fish and then - SNAP! - breakfast.
Eventually, all the usual suspects show up. Laughing gulls, herring gulls, willets, pelicans and more. In the dunes and trees behind the dunes, the song birds are out - cardinals, tufted titmice and the ever obnoxious mockingbirds. Time for the second best part of the morning after the sunrise - coffee. Better yet is drinking a cup of coffee while watching the sunrise. Life doesn't get much better.
The morning trucks on with more bird watching, beach walks, reading and some moments of contemplation (or light naps?). My reading material for the trip is Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire." Seems appropriate. The book deals heavily with Abbey's time at Arches National Park in the 1950's and his warnings about the "industrial tourism" industry and he effect it will have on our National Parks and wild places. Abbey would probably be aghast at the hot dog stand and UTV rentals available from park concessionaires at Cape Lookout. It is an interesting subject for debate but not one that I am going to delve into here. I do highly recommend the book if you have an interest in the subject.
Eventually the time comes to break camp. The plan is to pack up camp and spend the rest of the day before the ferry arrives playing on the sound side beaches. In stark contrast to the beach side, the sound side waters are calm other than the occasional boat wake that washes ashore. Not surprisingly, we find the water on the sound side to be as equally cold as the ocean side but we venture in to cool down none the less. We play until we see our ferry in the distance making its way to us from Harkers Island. Our trip has come to an end. Time to go home and de-sand everything. Until next time. -R
For more information on Cape Lookout National Seashore
For ferry reservations - Island Express Ferry Service
Comments