Olympic: Beach Day

I am NOT a beach person. I enjoy maybe a couple hours max at the beach swimming and reading and then the sun and sand start to get to me.  I HATE the sand the way it sticks to everything like a coating of shake and bake! As soon as you get wet, as I always do, I can’t resist, the sand launches it’s attack.  Well, anyway, the beaches here in Olympic are NOTHING like that.  They are awesome!!!!!  And coming from a non-beach person that’s a big statement!

Dad and I wanted to hike to the Hole-in-the-Wall from Rialto Beach – it was only 3 miles round trip, but it was a better hike at low tide.  Low tide yesterday was at either 6:58 AM or 6:58 PM.  Well, 6:58 AM was never going to happen, so this was going to be an evening hike!

We needed something to do all day though. 

Mom had seen that there is a lodge/restaurant on the ocean at Kalaloch, about 30 miles down 101. So we headed down there for a little exploration, and lunch. 

When we got there the ocean was ensconced in it’s usual fog.  But as we hung around a bit the sun worked it’s way through and the fog lifted.  

Down on the beach there were lots of people enjoying the day despite it not really being “beach weather”.  There were some folks building a fort out of driftwood!  How freaking cool is that? 

Dad and I walked down there and I noticed that the beach was more sandy than Rialto beach that we’d been to.  It was a fine sand, very dry on top, but very wet just under the surface.  Just under the surface it’s very packable too, much better for sand castle making! I ended up getting my feet wet (and the bottoms of my pants, is anyone surprised by this?) and I was worried that the sand would get hopelessly stuck to me feet, but it didn’t.  We sat for a minute on a long and I played in the sand with my feet. Very quickly all the sand had wiped right off my feet!  Non-stick sand!  How cool is that?  (maybe it’s teflon coated – the sand is black after all!)

We wandered up to the restaurant for lunch – it was very good, better than we were expecting!  While we were waiting for our food Dad noticed something white in a tall flat tree.  I picked up the camera and zoomed in on it – sure enough it was a Bald Eagle!  He was still sitting there after lunch so we were able to check him out in the binoculars and the spotting scope!

After lunch we headed back up the road toward Forks, stopping at Ruby Beach.  Ruby Beach has tiny pieces of garnet stuck in the sand giving it a red appearance.  We ended up nor going down to the beach, just checking out the overlook and the view from the parking lot.  It was very foggy and it was getting late, Dad and I needed to get back to get ready to head out Rialto Beach. 

We left the campground about 4:00 and headed over to Rialto Beach.  When we got there it was totally engulfed in fog.  You couldn’t see the sea stacks we’d seen the 1st first night.  You could barely even seen the ocean.  Thick, dense, impenetrable fog.

We headed out up the beach in this pea soup fog.  Slogging through loose rocks that are almost like walking on snow.  Finally the rocks gave way to packed hard sand! YAY!  As we walked it looked like the sun was making an effort to clear the fog.  It was definitely looking brighter!

As the fog started to lift the sea stacks became visible!  Just before the 1st sea stack there was a big rock and I saw people on it so I guessed that there must be tide pools!  I climbed up and the saw a family – a mom, a dad, and a 2-2 1/2 year old little girl.  The mom had a purple starfish in her hand that she was showing to the little girl. 

PURPLE STARFISH????  It was all I could to wait patiently and not try and snatch it away from the mom so I could look at it! They finally put it back in the pool, but I didn’t want to pick it up right away so I took a few pictures, checked out everything else in the area and then went back and picked up the very cool purple starfish!

Finally we had to move on and as soon as I rounded the corner of the big sea stack I could see the Hole-in-the-Wall! 

As we got closer to it there were more and more rocks and when you climbed up on the rocks they were full of tide pools!  I saw a bunch of starfish, both purple and orange! Just as I was heading into the official “Hole-in-the-Wall” another gal handed me the prettiest purple starfish!  It was dark purple – kind of like the purple in my living room, only darker!  I wish I’d put him on a rock and gotten his picture before I put him back in the water, once he was in the water he was holding on tight and I couldn’t pick him up!

On the other side of the Hole-in-the-Wall there were tons of tide pools, with starfish a plenty.  On almost every rock, in every pool there were starfish!  All purple and orange.  I probably saw close to 100 but didn’t take pictures of them all! 

It was early, we’d gotten to Hole-in-the-Wall around 6:30, just before the official low tide.  Since we had time and the sun was now out, we walked up the beach a little ways over some different rocks. These looked to be clearly made from lava, although there were 2 different types.  And they had tide pools, but no starfish.  None.  I guess they don’t like that kind of rock!

On the way back I walked back over to the tide pools to look for the starfish again.  They were gone.  I couldn’t find any of them.  What?  Where did they go?  I also noticed that the rocks were drier and there was more seaweed.  My best guess is that as the tide goes further out, we were now at the height of low tide, the tide pools drain and the starfish end up under the seaweed. I didn’t lift the seaweed looking for them them.  The ones that we’d found in deep pools of water were still there though.  I’m glad we got there just before low tide, apparently if we’d gotten there even just 5 minutes later I wouldn’t have seen the purple starfish!

The trip back was nice! The sun was mostly shining – still hazy and there was fog way out at sea – the waves were crashing and packed sand was easy to walk on!

When we got back to the parking area the sun was sinking low and glowing red! We decided to stay for sunset!  I changed my shoes, I’d wisely worn my hiking boots for the hike, and headed back to the beach.  This time I was going to get wet.  I’d been wanting to wade since the 1st time we got to the beach, but I wasn’t wearing clothes I could get wet in.

Walking across the rocky beach barefoot was painful, the water was like ice, my feet were red instantly, and then frozen.  After 2 waves I hobbled up the beach away from where the waves crash, sat down in the rocks and put my shoes on! So much for wading in the Pacific! :-)

The sunset was the best yet!

With beaches like this, I just might change my opinion.  Maybe I could be a beach person yet! :-)

Olympic: Beach Day!