What is the last piece of the the USA to be touched by the setting sun?
http://offsecnewbie.com/ccx/ If we use the equinox as a date and only the west coast from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, clear skies a given, what "land" piece of the coast will be the very last place to have a ray of sunlight? I guess we could include some very old trees on the coast, i.e. the coastal redwoods in the SF bay area or those great old Monteray pines, but it really should be a hill, mountain, etc.
Technorati Tags: canadian border, clear skies, coastal redwoods, equinox, old trees, ray of sunlight, sf bay area, west coast
7 Responses
tamumd
28 Jun 2010
Eagleflyer
28 Jun 2010
Well, there’s Hawaii . . . Mauna Loa. If it has to be on the North American continent, I would think that would be the peninsula in the Bering Straits (I forget the name). I suppose Mt. McKinley would get the last rays. If it was just the continental U.S., I would think the northwest corner of Washington state gets the last rays.
polloloco.rb67
28 Jun 2010
It would be one of the islands off the west coast of Alaska. Many people don’t know this, but these islands actually extend further out west than the Hawaiian islands!
Craig C
28 Jun 2010
some place in the Hawaiian islands?
wiggsgrad86
28 Jun 2010
If it has to be mainland, definitely the Aluetian Islands. Don’t forget the Hawaiian Islands or the Midway Islands. And then there is Guam… Yea, Guam is your best bet.
rethinker
28 Jun 2010
The westernmost point in the United States that is part of a state would be Cape Wrangell on the island of Attu. Attu is at the end of the Aleutian Island chain in Alaska. It is further west than any part of Hawaii.
Unless you take into account that since it is west of the 180 degree line of longitude it is in the eastern hemisphere. Therefore Attu can be considered the easternmost point in the United States and the place where the sun first rises. How ever the international date line has been directed around Attu so that from a time keeping standpoint it is still the last place where the sun sets.
Also the time of sunset has to do with how far north you are and the time of year due to the tilt of the earth’s axis. So just going how far west a place is only valid around the equinoxes when the daytime is the same all over the earth.
geo3598
28 Jun 2010
Alaska in the aluetian chain of islands
don’t forget Hawaii and guam