More from Cape Hatteras

I just had to post a couple more sunset photos taken of the 1870 Cape Hatteras lighthouse. I have a couple sunrise photos but will sandwich those in with others I shot on the Outer Banks before I return to the Hatteras light. The lighthouse is the tallest in America and easily one of the most photographed. “In 1999, the Cape Hatteras Light Station, which consists of seven historic structures, was successfully relocated 2,900 feet from the spot on which it had stood since 1870. [There has been a lighthouse structure at this site since 1803.] Because of the threat of shoreline erosion, a natural process, the entire light station was safely moved to a new site where the historic buildings and cisterns were placed in spatial and elevational relationship to each other, exactly as they had been at the original site” (National Park Service).

It is massive but when you first see it, you don’t realize this. A short walk to the base and your mind quickly changes. I did not hike up the structure for a couple of reasons. I had walked solid for two days in Colonial Williamsburg and the other reason is the amount of people going up the structure. Here is what the park service wrote about the climb to the top: “The climb is strenuous!Â The 248 iron spiral stairs to the top equal climbing a 12 story building. The stairs have a handrail only on one side and a landing every 31 steps. There is no air conditioning. It may be noisy, humid, hot and dim inside the lighthouse and there is two-way traffic on the narrow stairs.” The thing that stopped me was not the noise, the humidity but the part that states “two-way traffic on the narrow stairs” and the footnote that the “stairs have a handrail only on one side.”

I know this needs to be straightened but I had Clarence’s super wide angle lens with me and I used it. Then after hearing that he was in the hospital in California battling pneumonia I wanted to post this in his honor. He is a true friend and I pray that he will soon recover.