I'm often asked where's my favorite place to visit in the Carolinas.
Well, for me, that's a problem
because I have a lot of favorite places,
But one thing's for sure.
Hatteras Island is certainly at the top of the list.
Ranger Chris took me on a tour of this famous tower,
that is, once we got his proper title sorted out.
You are an imperial park ranger?
Supreme park ranger.
Carl: So Ranger Chris, how many steps are there in the lighthouse?
Chris: From interior, there's 248,
but we like to count the exterior nine steps that all visitors do travel.
So about 257.
Carl: Well, let's try them out.
Chris: Let's do it.
How many times have you done this trip?
This is my fourth year here,
so we're in the couple hundreds
of journeys upward.
Oh, okay. [laughs]
And just so everybody knows,
there is no elevator.
I don't see one.
So this is really a nice little endurance walk.
Chris: One of our top questions is where is the elevator?
And we always tell people we're working on it.
[Laughs]
Carl: Ah, so we have a landing
so people can take a break as they go up.
Chris: Yea, these are very thoughtfully put in
by the designers.
So when the keeper is carrying up his oil,
he could take a break every 31 steps.
One thing I want to point out here
is our cool alcoves,
which I really like these.
See how we're on the first landing?
It's very deep and it's very large.
As you keep going up,
it gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
As we get higher, it gets more dramatically pulled in
to account for the different sizes.
My.
Carl: It is a bit like the stair stepper,
except you're in history, right?
Chris: Yeah, I mean just imagine how many trips
the lighthouse keeper took up these stairs,
but he was carrying roughly about seventy pounds of oil up here, every time.
Had to keep the light on. We had to keep it on.
[Music]
Narrative: As we made our way to the top
I learned why having a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras
is so crucial.
Chris: The reason why the Cape Hatteras lighthouses is here,
is to serve as a warning to Mariners
about the complicated and very dangerous shoals,
which is basically sandbars.
And why that's happening,
two major ocean currents
meet right here at Hatteras.
And that causes all sorts of problems.
Those ocean currents bring lots of sand
and they dump it, right here at Cape Hatteras.
So, it's sort of like a brick wall, so to speak.
Carl: So, a boat, if it were to hit it,
it would just stop?
Chris: That's right.
It would get a big hole in it,
sink, most likely.
This is called Graveyard of the Atlantic, for a reason.
Carl : Okay.
Chris: Lots of ships met their fate here
and that's why they said, we need a lighthouse here
because Mariners went, oh, we're at Cape Hatteras,
we might wanna go way around Cape Hatteras.
Carl: Well so, I can see
it's getting much more narrow now.
Chris: Yes.
Carl: And where are we at, about half way?
Chris: Yea, there's eight landings.
We're on the fifth landing.
So we're rounding third base
Carl: So, I'm guessing that because of the sand barges,
and keeping a lot of the main boats away,
was that a reason that the pirates favored coming here,
because it was safer for them?
Chris: Absolutely, the pirate folks knew that hey,
North Carolina has a lot of sandbars.
Nobody is really going to chase us in here.
If they did, they may wreck,
so it took a calculated effort by the royal governor of Virginia,
to take care of Blackbeard back in 1718.
Narrative: And let's not forget about the most important part of the Lighthouse,
the light.
Chris: Back when this was first constructed in 1870,
they had a really exciting lens,
called a Fresnel lens.
They were built in France and it was shipped over.
This was sort of like the Apple Computer of the day.
It was pretty high-tech and it's still high-tech today
and it really helped save lives.
Huge, gigantic light.
You can see it used to sit right where this circular board is here.
Carl: So this would have been the base.
Chris: It would go all the way through this giant hole here,
and all the way to the top,
a gigantic lens,
and it would actually spin.
And you say, well, how does it spin?
There's no electricity. This is 1870.
There was a clockwork device within the light
then there was weights that hung down from the middle,
right where we're standing
will go all the way down the lighthouse
and they would sort of counter balance each other
to spin the light.
Carl: So the light keepers not only have to put oil in,
but did they have to pull those pulleys --
Yea.
-- or was it automatic?
Yea, they had a wind--
Just like winding a clock?
Yea, they had to wind the weights every morning.
Carl : That kept it going around.
Chris: Yea, really fantastic design.
Those Fresnel lenses ended up in just about every lighthouse.
And here was the first order for Fresnel lens,
which is the biggest.
Carl: Wow.
Chris: But today we have a modern era beacon,
up there with a thousand watt bulb
and with a little sort of reflective mirror behind it
and that projects out about 20 miles.
And it spins around in a flash pattern, as we like to call it,
is at 7.5 seconds.
So if you stand in one spot,
it'll technically flash every 7.5 seconds.
Carl: Every 7.5 seconds, you can see it. Okay.
Chris: That's right.
Carl: Well, that's certainly impressive.
[Footsteps]
Chris: The final 15 here.
[Footsteps]
I'm going to open the door.
Carl: Okay.
[Latch opening]
Chris: Believe me, it's going to feel good.
Carl: Oh, look at that!
So this is now part of the National Park System
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Carl: and it's open to the public.
So the Hatteras Lighthouse, if I understand right,
is known worldwide.
This image is one of the more popular lighthouses.
Chris: Absolutely, I've driven around other states
and I'll see that image of the Hatteras Lighthouse
in people's yards,
like not just North Carolina,
but far from here,
-- with the unusual striping,
which was developed in 1873.
That certainly makes Hatteras really stand out
and plus it's the tallest.
Carl: Yea. So, it's the tallest in America?
Chris: Yes, the reason why it's so tall,
most of the East Coast lighthouses are tall,
because if you think about it, from about Delaware to Florida
there's not a lot of mountains or there's not any mountains
and the lighthouse had a go at least 20 miles to be effective.
My favorite part of the job
is actually working up here when we rotate shifts.
Let's put it this way,
I've never had a bad day at work here
because I love coming here
and the lighthouse kind of does draw me in
for the four years that I've been here
and it's, you know, it's never a bad day here.
Narrative: I couldn't agree more.
Superior Ranger Chris,
I think the world seems
pretty darn good from up here, too.