Bodie Island’s striped tower still works after 150 years, and you can climb every step

It’s still working, and you can climb it

The Outer Banks has claimed more ships than almost any stretch of coast in America. So many went down here that sailors called it the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

What kept some of them off the rocks was a black-and-white striped tower rising 156 feet from a pine forest just south of Nags Head. Bodie Island Lighthouse has been doing that job since 1872, and you can still climb it.

The views from the top are only part of what makes it worth the trip.

Three towers, one stubborn stretch of coastline

The lighthouse you see today is actually the third one built on this spot. The first went up in the 1840s, leaned badly, and was abandoned by 1859.

A second went up that same year, stood for two years, and then Confederate troops blew it up as they retreated in 1861.

The current tower first lit up on Oct. 1, 1872, and it has held its ground ever since, guiding ships along this same dangerous coast for more than 150 years.

Those stripes aren’t just decoration

The bold horizontal bands circling the tower carry a name: a daymark.

Before radio and GPS, sailors needed a way to tell one lighthouse from another in daylight, and each tower got a distinct pattern.

The black and white stripes of Bodie Island meant something specific to a captain rounding the cape and scanning the shore. They said: you are here, not somewhere else.

At 156 feet, the tower stands above the surrounding pine canopy and reads clearly from the water on a bright morning.

Climbing all 219 steps

The spiral staircase runs 219 steps from the base to the balcony, roughly the same as climbing a 10-story building. There’s no elevator, and the air inside can feel warm and close, especially in summer.

Rangers send one person per flight at a time, so you move at your own pace and stop on the landings when you need a breath. Most people find a rhythm by the halfway point.

The staircase is tight and the light is low, but the whole thing takes less time than it feels like it will.

What you see from the balcony

Step out onto the balcony and the coast opens in every direction. East is the Atlantic.

West is Roanoke Sound. Below you, the green marsh and pine forest ring the base of the tower like a collar.

On a clear day, the flat coastal land spreads out so far it starts to blur at the edges. Hold onto your hat up there.

The wind comes in off the water with nothing to slow it down, and phones have a way of feeling very small in your hands.

A French physicist’s lens still sitting at the top

Near the top of the tower, the original first-order Fresnel lens sits where it was installed over 150 years ago.

French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel developed the design in the 1820s, using hundreds of precisely cut glass prisms to gather light from a single source and push it into one concentrated beam.

Most lighthouses have swapped out their original lenses for modern equipment. This one still has it.

On a clear night, that beam reaches about 19 miles out to sea.

The light is still doing its job

Bodie Island Lighthouse isn’t a retired monument. Ships still use it.

The light was electrified in 1932, which meant no more keepers living on site to tend the flame through the night. But the signal itself never stopped.

The beam fires in a specific rhythm, a pattern of flashes and pauses that tells a mariner exactly which lighthouse they’re looking at. Every lighthouse on this coast has its own signature.

Sailors learn to read them the same way you’d recognize a voice in a crowd.

A boardwalk into the marsh

After the climb, a short flat trail leads from the base of the lighthouse to a viewing platform at the edge of a freshwater marsh. The path takes maybe 10 minutes at a slow walk.

Benches line the way, and the platform at the end sits right over the water, where the pines give way to open reeds and sky.

It’s a different pace from the tower, quieter and lower to the ground, and it gives you a second way to see the same place.

Birds, water and a lot of patience rewarded

The ponds and marsh around the lighthouse pull in waterfowl and wading birds through most of the year.

Herons, egrets and ducks show up regularly on the platform, and the nearby Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge a few miles down the road adds even more ground to cover if birds are your reason for coming.

Bring binoculars.

The distances across the marsh are wide enough that a lot of what’s worth seeing won’t be visible to the naked eye.

A lighthouse that grows from the trees

Most lighthouses stand on open shore with nothing around them but sand and sky. This one rises straight out of a forest.

Tall pines, cedar and freshwater wetlands wrap the base on every side, and the tower climbs through the canopy before it clears into open air above. Freshwater ponds sit in the surrounding landscape.

The combination of pine forest and coastal marsh gives the grounds a green, enclosed feel you don’t expect from a lighthouse, and the stripes hit differently when they’re framed by trees.

When to go and where to stand with a camera

Early morning gets you soft light on the stripes and a parking lot that isn’t full yet. The tower reads best from the lawn at the base, where the full 156-foot height comes into frame.

Head to the ponds and look for a calm surface. On still days, the reflection doubles the tower below the waterline, and you end up with a different photograph than everyone else who came that morning.

Sunset pulls the warm light around to the western face and brings fewer people than midday.

The wider coast starts right here

Bodie Island sits at the northern end of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which makes it the first real stop as you drive south along the Outer Banks.

Coquina Beach is just across the highway with open sand and easy access to the Atlantic. The seashore itself runs for miles from here, rolling through dunes, sound and sea.

Parking is free, and the grounds stay open year-round. Arriving early keeps the lot from being a problem and gives you the calm before the day warms up.

Visit Bodie Island Lighthouse in North Carolina

The lighthouse sits at 8210 Bodie Island Lighthouse Road in Nags Head, inside Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Climbing season runs roughly mid-April through mid-October.

Tickets go on sale through recreation. gov on the day of the climb, so check early.

Children need to be at least 42 inches tall to go up. The outdoor grounds and boardwalk trail are open year-round at no charge.

Note that the Double Keepers’ Quarters visitor center is temporarily closed following a January 2025 fire, though rangers are still on site.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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