Olympic Peninsula – West coast

Once again, it’s been a while since I blogged.  If I would just catch up it sure would make it easier.  I waited so long that it’s hard to remember some of the names of the places I went.

I made my way from Kelso, WA to Pacific Beach, WA staying at Pacific Beach State Park.  My purpose of stopping here was just to get to a beach and take it easy. And that’s exactly what I did.  Lots of beach and not too many people – just what I like!

After Pacific Beach, I headed up to Forks, WA.  I have not seen Twilight, but apparently some of the movies takes place in Forks, WA.  The town has definitely profited because of this.  There are several stores dedicated to Twilight junk and several tours to take fans to places where some of it was filmed.

I didn’t really care about Twilight, but I used Forks as my base for touring the area.  My first stop was the Hoh Rain forest in the Olympic National Park. It was a pretty green place, but to be honest I’ve seen so much moss, ferns and other green things that it didn’t seem as spectacular as other people say. 

There were some interesting trails and I thought how they used these 2 fallen trees below was neat.  That’s the trail between the 2 trees and at the end you walk under one of the trees.

I guess moss grows anywhere.  Many of the buildings had moss on top of them also.

The Olympic National Park has several different sections.  From Forks, I explored both the rain forest and the coast.   Most of the time I was there it was overcast and/or foggy. That seems to be very typical of this area.  I may have my beach names wrong, if you think so, let me know. 

Below is Ruby beach.  Apparently at one time there were red grains in the sand and some people thought rubies, but they were actually garnets.  I didn’t see any.

Rialto Beach is one of the more popular beaches.  When I first got to the beach it was grey and overcast but not bad.  Then the fog started rolling in.   You can see in the second picture below that the tops of the sea stacks are in the fog.

My favorite beach was Second Beach in the La Push area.   To get to the beach, there is a trail leading to the beach.  Nice walk, interesting creatures --

I believe it’s a banana slug.  Second Beach is known for it’s drift wood.  You had to scramble over the logs to get to the beach.  As you can see from below there was blue sky when I got there.  But as you continue down the pictures you’ll notice a bit of fog and then it get’s heavy.

 

Cape Flattery is in the NorthWest point of Washington.  It’s part of a the Makah Indian Reservation.  Before going to the Cape, I went to the Makah Museum – interesting place.  In 1970 erosion unearthed a mudslide that had destroyed an Indian village 500 years ago.  The museum is based on that village.  Cape Flattery is a beautiful place.  I had read that the trail could be tricky, but had also read the Indian tribe had worked on it recently and improved it.  It was a great trail, uphill on the way back but not bad.  From the viewing decks at the end there were great views.

Next I’ll write about my visits on the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula.