The headland at Cape Flattery is high above the Pacific Ocean, and the waves, which have deeply undercut the cliff, break in the hollows below the point of land. Cape Flattery, on the Olympic Peninsula, is on the Makah Indian Reservation and reached via Neah Bay. From the Cape Flattery trailhead, there is a short half mile walk to the headland that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and Tatoosh Island. The short walk passes through a distinctive coastal forest community. This community, which is restricted to a narrow band along the coast, extends from southern Alaska to northern California.

The forest at Cape Flattery is perched on a rocky headland that faces the Pacific Ocean.	A forest of western red cedar in moist lowlands on the walk to Cape Flattery.

The main trees of the coastal forest community are sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), and western red cedar (Thuja plicata). At Cape Flattery, the trail passes through a moist lowland forest of large western red cedars mixed with a few western hemlock. In disturbance areas and along streams there are stands of red alder (Alnus rubra). As one rises from the lowland, closer to land's end at Cape Flattery, the forest has a mix of sitka spruce and western hemlock. At the margin of the Cape, small sitka spruce line the edge of the cliff. These sitka spruce are stunted, and their branches all point in one direction. They are called "wind trees" because the strong winds blowing off the ocean trim branches that grow against the prevailing direction of the wind.

Sitka spruce "wind trees" face stiff wind blowing directly off the Pacific Ocean at the edge of Cape Flattery.	Sitka spruce are common in the coastal forest.

Western hemlock and western red cedar form dense, dark forests on the northwestern coast.	Along streams and in once disturbed openings of the coastal conifer forest near Cape Flattery, we can find stands of red alder, which has a distinctive white colored trunk.