Imagine for a second a ferocious world of brutal storms and a rampaging ocean. Imagine 35-foot waves and wind howling out of the southwest with speeds approaching 100 miles per hour.

The harried winds uncork sinister sounds, moans, threats and banshee wails. You’re a sailor, or the captain of a three-masted sailing ship, a barkentine or schooner, caught off the mouth of the Columbia River on a series of sandbars called Peacock Spit. It’s your command, your responsibility. A dozen crewmen await your decision.

Aboard the bludgeoned ship, sailors attempt to steady and preserve the rest of their lives. The rain is so thick that they can’t make out the headland. There will be no navigation systems for another 100 years. The good captain hates to admit the truth, but he is in grave danger. He can’t even call the U.S. Coast Guard, not that it would do much good. No sane person would cross the Columbia River Bar in such a maelstrom.

The year is 1898. Through the rain, storm and ocean spray, the captain catches a flicker of light and then, 30 seconds later, a beam that penetrates — just barely — through the black night.

Here is the newly-constructed North Head Lighthouse, a beacon of hope for sailors and ships. The captain turns the vessel westerly, rock and rolling under sail into the impenetrable darkness. Deeper waters are safer waters, without the threat of the igneous headland.

Beaming first upon the scene on May 16, 1898, North Head Lighthouse has been a beacon of hope for 125 years. The 65-foot lighthouse offers more potential nowadays as one of the most photographed sentinels in the Northwest.

More so than as a guardian angel of the Northwest Passage. That preordained discovery was to be part of Thomas Jefferson’s master plan to discover a water byway across the United States.

Neither president, nor any other white man, imagined the Rocky Mountains. Capt. Lewis broke down at the first sighting of the indomitable snowcapped obstacle. In the late 18th century, rudimentary maps defined the Northwest as the “Great American Desert.”

No desert here. On an overcast Saturday morning, only one car graces the asphalt parking lot near the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment State Park. Abandoning their rig, three friends walk down the spruce-lined footpath to the famous structure, 200 feet above the Pacific Ocean and 3 miles west of Ilwaco.

To have the vista to themselves is a rare kind of meditative moment, an inspiring moment. The gulls gather on the fishing rocks below, and the cormorants and seabirds. Overhead, a red tail hawk floats effortlessly on the wind, its predator’s eyes searching the overlook for vole or mice, for a clutch of eggs for breakfast.

Three deer saunter about, lifting their furry heads cautiously. Further south, one can clearly make out the great North Jetty that corrals some of the currents at the mouth of the Columbia. On a clear day, one can make out the Olympic Mountains, far to the north.

In 1792, Capt. Robert Gray sailed the Columbia Rediviva into a portage just off today’s Fort Columbia. At that point, the native Chinook people occupied the river, their home from time immemorial. The lighthouse was still a dream, nearly a century away.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse was completed first in 1856, a navigational outpost exposing the Columbia River from the south, but sailors couldn’t spot the river coming from the north.

Congress approved construction and work on the second lighthouse began in 1897. Finished at a cost of around $50,000, the brick edifice was completed just a year later. Newly renovated, the edifice stands proud in all its glory.

Capt. Gray sent out an invitation. Other sailing ships arrived. A good number were marooned on the shifting sands and thus began the reputation of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

Two jetties and two lighthouses ultimately offered a partial solution. Partial, but ships still floundered. On The Ship Report by Joanne Rideout, there are explanations of many of the hazards that befall the recipients of these stunning but deadly tidal waters that shape our homeland.

Meanwhile, the lighthouse functions much as it has over the last 100 years. Lighthouse keepers no longer have to carry many gallons of kerosene up the long, circular staircase that opens to the eyes one of the natural wonders of the Columbia-Pacific region.

Lighthouse tenders no longer man the edifice day and night, but visitors can still ascend those same steps on weekends during the summer or book a stay in the Lighthouse Keeper’s Quarters.

Lewis and Clark stood here gawking in 1805. They never guessed what would come after. They never imagined a great stone lantern rising more than 200 feet above the ocean. That winter day, they stood spellbound.

North Head Lighthouse

Cape Disappointment State Park, 244 Robert Gray Drive, Ilwaco

Lighthouse open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through Sunday through Sept. 24

Admission is $2.50 for adults and free for children ages 7 to 17. Children must be at least 7 years old to climb the lighthouse tower

www.parks.wa.gov