Cape Meares is a small headland on Oregon’s Pacific coast, rising as a steep bluff at the south end of Tillamook Bay northwest of Tillamook. Named for British explorer John Meares, it is notable for the meeting of forest, ocean, and the long sandy peninsula that encloses the bay. Much of the cape is protected within a state scenic viewpoint with hiking trails, Cape Meares Light, and the Octopus Tree, a large multi-trunked Sitka spruce. Nearby are the community of Cape Meares, Cape Meares Lake, Cape Meares Beach, and the Bayocean peninsula, where an upscale resort town was destroyed by coastal erosion in the 1930s.