Walking on Pacific Beaches

Even though the morning started out overcast and misty, it quickly cleared up in to a blue sky, sunny day.  This seems to be the pattern for this northwest region, and explains the high amount of rainfall.  I usually have a sweatshirt or a fleece on because the temperatures have been in the middle 60s.

Leaving Forks we traveled south along Highway 101, past the turnoff to go back up to the Hoh Rain Forest, and after that the road started going right along the coast down to Kalaloch.  Most of the time, however, we couldn't really see the ocean because we were up on a cliff covered by fairly heavy forest.  The first beach that we stopped at was Ruby Beach.  Each of the beaches required a hike down to the beach level.  Even from above the beach, you could hear the pounding of the surf.  Ruby Beach is a cobble beach until you went out to the low tide line where we could walk along the reddish brown sand.  There was the usual pile of drift logs piled along the beach.  To the north were a number of sea stacks.  Near the biggest sea stack there were numerous tidal pools.  In the tidal pools were starfish, sea anemones, barnacles, at least two different kinds of mussels, and one snail.  Along the beach we collected the shells of Pacific razor clams.

Judy (with her newly found walking stick) at Ruby Beach, with the largest of the sea stacks in background.

Some of the animals in the tidal pools: barnacles (top left), starfish (top right), mussels (bottom left), and sea anemones (bottom right)

While I sat on one of the drift logs and enjoyed relaxing in the sun and just looking out at the surf, I met a woman from Rockford, Illinois, who looks for heart-shaped rocks and collects them from each beach that she goes to.  She gave me one of her rocks, and, on returning later, gave me several more.  I found several more and later passed one of them on to a young girl that we had stopped to chat with her father.  It was fun to pass it on to someone else.

As we were hiking up and down to the beaches, I greatly appreciated having my walking stick.  When we were at the Rialto Beach on Wednesday I had been walking along with another man, while Eb went back to the car to get my sweat shirt, and when we came to the end of the paved walkway and had to negotiate climbing down to the beach, he offered me his walking stick which was a piece of wood he had picked up along the beach earlier.  It was just the right height for me and had a relatively smoothed off end at the top.

World's largest western red cedar tree, with Judy (lower right)

On the drive to the next beach we pulled off the highway to view the world's largest Western Red Cedar Tree.  The base of the tree was a mass of gnarled roots up above the ground.  Around that tree there were many other very large trees.  As you got further back into the woods, the ground got wetter and your feet squished along on the path.  The sign had indicated that the trees grew so large because of the relatively mild climate and huge amount of rainfall.

All around the edge of the parking lot were bushes containing orangish-yellow berries.  Eb picked a handful and they didn't have a very strong berry taste nor were they overly sweet.  Except for the color, they looked very much like blackberries.   Later at the ranger station, I asked the woman for the name of these berries and she answered that they were safe to eat.  I told her that we had already eaten them and just wanted to know their name, which was salmonberry.

Arriving at Beach 4 we found a picnic table and enjoyed eating our picnic lunch;  enjoying the sun and the lack of wind.

The hike down to Beach 4 was challenging to say the least, having many, many steps and a steep descent.  Even when we arrived down near the beach level,  there was a choice of climbing down a ladder or climbing down the large boulders.  I decided to stay up on the top of the boulders and enjoyed the view of the surf and the surfers.  I talked with three of the surfers, as they came by, who were there to celebrate one of their birthdays.  They were all in full wet suits, and all four were surfing in the waves right next to the large sea stack.  The beach was primarily coarse sand with the usual drift logs along the back edges.  By that time in the afternoon, the tide was coming in and was starting to bring the water further up on to the beach.

Beach 4, from the overlook.

Back in Forks, we stopped briefly in the city park to see the train engine displayed there.  It was a Shay engine (just like the ones used at the Cass Railroad).  This one had been used in the timber industry, just like at Cass.  This particular engine was oil powered, while the ones at Cass are coal powered.

Rayonier (timber company operating in this area) engine 10.

Walked across the road to one of the restaurants for a salmon dinner, sitting in the booth under the head of a stuffed elk with a huge rack of antlers.  They had advertised homemade pies;  I had lemon meringue and Eb had cherry pie - both of which were excellent.

Back at the motel, we needed to get organized and packed up.  Tomorrow we will be leaving Forks and going back across the north of the peninsula to Port Townsend.  Not sure if we will have wireless for the next two nights, so I may be typing the entry each night, but not getting it posted right away on the blog.