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We spent a windy, rainy day exploring (or trying to explore) some of the Pacific beaches at Olympic National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Washington. The beaches are often described as “wild” in many park publications, and for good reason. They’re part of the longest stretch of undeveloped beach in the contiguous United States. This entry covers all beaches we visited except Shi Shi Beach.
Second Beach
The first beach we visited was on an early morning hike to Second Beach, located near La Push. It’s an easy 0.7 mile one-way trail with a short but steep descent at the end. Most of the trail is through a forest.
At the end of the trail, we ran into several logs washed up on the beach. We had to carefully climb over them in order to walk on the beach.
We explored beach and admired the stacks for a good 20 minutes until the tide started to come in. The wind gusts were so powerful, we were able to fall backwards with the wind holding us up.
The stacks along the beach are part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge, a section of the Washington Islands Wilderness.
Rialto Beach
Next, we drove to Rialto Beach, which is on the other side of La Push in the Mora area. We had to walk over a few fallen logs to get to the black rock beach.
The rain was driving by this point, and combined with the wind, it was more than a bit miserable. This thwarted our plans to walk to Hole-in-the-Wall, a natural arch about a mile up the beach, and see more sea stacks. The stacks off Rialto Beach are part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge
Ruby Beach
After a detour to the Hoh Rain Forest, we made our way to Ruby Beach. The best we could do is admire it from an overlook at the parking lot. The rain was coming down hard and the tides were high. The stacks at Ruby Beach are depicted on several postcards and posters sold at the park, and are part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge. I guess we’ll have to wait until next time to get closer.
Kalaloch
Finally, before driving back to Seattle, we stopped at Kalaloch Lodge for a quick bite. We couldn’t do much other than look at Kalaloch Creek (again because of the rain), but apparently the Kalaloch area is popular for bird watching, beach hiking, and tidal pools.
