Beach Hike 2021
by Mike Thompson, 8/18/2021
Damon Dreke, Billy Goodman, Andrew Carter, Jon Carter, and I hiked from Rialto Beach along the shoreline in Olympic National Park to the Lake Ozette Ranger Station. We left Rialto Beach on Tuesday, August 3rd and got to Lake Ozette the morning of Friday, August 6th, camping along the way at Chilean Memorial, Cedar Creek, and Sand Point.
"Beach hike" brings to mind images of easy walking over long stretches of hard-packed sand. Less than 10% of the walking on this stretch of coastline is that kind of fast going. More often you're stepping from boulder to boulder, moving catiously over wet, slipery rock covered in seaweed and algae, wading through berms of surf-smoothed pebbles, or scrambling over headlands using fixed ropes. Thankfully the schedule wasn't overly ambitious in terms of the miles we needed to cover each day, so we had time to soak up the scenery and enjoy one-another's company.
The weather was mostly cool, with low clouds and some fog, though we had some periods of bright blue sky as well. With high temperatures in the 60's we were able to hike pretty comfortably in shorts and T-shirts, spared the sweltering heat that so often comes with hiking in high summer.
Day 1 got off to a liesurely start with a big breakfast in Forks. Then we drove down to Rialto Beach, parked Damon's van, shouldered our packs, and started north toward Chilean Memorial, our first night's campsite.
Chilean Memorial was the site of a shipwreck in 1920. The captain, his wife, and their young son were Scandanavian, but all but two of the rest of the crew had Spanish surnames. All hands, less two, were lost. It's easy to see why this coastline, with it huge winter surf, rocky ledges and outcroppings, and foggy weather was known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.
Day 2 there were low clouds and fog until mid-afternoon. We had a couple scrambles over headlands, including a very long rope-aided descent on the second one.
When I hike I'm prone to collecting interesting little rocks I see along the path. On beach hikes I sometimes collect floats that have washed ashore, of which we now have quite a collection in our back yard. On this hike I collected more than usual. A float numbered 1409, our address on 12th Avenue in Yakima when I was growing up. Wilson! (Could it be the one lost by Tom Hanks in Cast Away?) And many nice rocks sculpted by wave and sand.
We got to Cedar Creek not long after noon, made a very comfortable camp, got in a swim during the afternoon sun break, and then enjoyed dinner and a campfire.
Day 3 was our longest day of hiking, with over eight miles to cover. We reached Yellow Banks with the tide still a bit too high to be able to proceed, so invented a game named Five Sticks with which to pass the time. Then we wriggled through a little keyhole and around the corner onto the broad beach of Sand Point, where we spent the night. We had rain that evening, for the first time on the trip.
We woke to a beautiful sky on Day 4, had breakfast, packed up our gear for the last time, and walked the three miles of cedar boardwalk back to the Lake Ozette Ranger Station. The adventure ended with beer and pizza in Port Angeles, after which we went our separate ways.
At the end of the hike I said to Damon, "I feel like my whole life has just been interrupted in the nicest possible way." At the beginning of a trip like this it takes at least a day for the thoughts that so often fill our minds to fade: the mental list of tasks undone at work and at home, the flurry of last-minute preparations (Got the hiking permit? Remembered to pack the water filter?), and the like. But then, hour by hour, the rhythm of looking for next solid rock on which to step, with an occasional glance up to find the path and enjoy the scenery, slowly stills the mental white noise. All that remained by Day 3 was the sound of the surf and the beauty of the surroundings.