Today was Jordan's birthday. Happy Birthday, Jordan! She is now officially a teenager. Eeeek!
Okay, so today was Shi Shi (pronounced Shy Shy) Beach. It was amazing. Google it and you'll know why we wanted to do it so much. It's on many a top 10 list and we now know why. Jack - you definitely need to see this place.
Paying attention to the tide chart and the overland trail markers along this coastline is extremely important. If you screw it up and don't time it right, you're not going to get to play in the tide pools or even make it to certain parts of the beach. For the most part, Shi Shi Beach is wide enough even at high tide, but it you travel a wee bit south towards and just past the Point of the Arches, you definitely need to pay attention to the tide and where the overland trails are.
So, here was our day...
We left the campground at 9am and headed towards Neah Bay and the Makah Indian Reservation.
I spotted a Bald Eagle sitting with a juvenile on one of the rocks. This made me quite happy and I just knew it was going to be a good day.
While Shi Shi Beach is actually part of the Olympic National Park, the access trail leading to the beach is on the Indian reservation and requires the purchase of a $10 recreation permit.
We picked ours up at the Makah Mini Mart and headed to the trailhead parking area. We debated whether we should park there or pay a local $10 to park in their yard. Vandalism can be a problem and we were concerned that the truck might get broken into. We pulled into the lot, saw there was a nicer truck than ours and decided to risk it. :)
The trail to the beach is in none other than old growth rain forest...YAAAY! MORE Rainforest! Yipppeee. Part of the trail has boarded walkways that traverse the nastier bits of the trail and the water crossings.
Other sections of the trail are so muddy that you are literally at risk of losing your boot in the mud. Initially, we tried to pick our way around the uber muddy sections, but eventually gave up and let our super tight laces and GORE-TEX boots do their thing.
The trail is a flat, easy 2 miles until you get to the cliff that takes you down 150 feet to the beach. The "trail" then becomes extremely STEEP and very tricky. One trail description stated the descent to the beach is between an 11 and 20% grade. Throw in a bunch of tree roots, a wet trail and few switchbacks to offset the change in elevation and it becomes a little challenging.
(This picture was actually taken on the trip back.)
Before the cliff edge, there are a few "lookout" spots where you can wander off the trail for a few feet to catch some preliminary views. My first thought was "Oooohhhh....this is going to be good!"
Once we got to the beach, we were amazed that there was no one else down there.
(This pic shows the trail right before it pops out onto the beach.)
We had passed one couple on the way back who told us there was no one else around, but that just didn't seem possible so I didn't give it much thought. It was really amazing to have this place all to ourselves.
Looking to the South, you could see the Point of the Arches - a tide pool mecca.
(In this shot, we're part of the way down the beach with the Point of the Arches in the background.)
I wanted to stop and check out all the smaller tide pools along the way, but I knew Point of the Arches would be underwater in a few hours, so we headed the 2 miles down the beach and took in what we could. Low tide was at 11:30. We didn't get to the beach until a little after 12, so we had until almost 5:30 before high tide was at its peak.
We took in a lot. There were sea stars (I recently learned these particular guys are not called starfish), anemones, barnacles and mussels galore. I must really like sea stars given my penchant to photograph them.
I was snapping pictures left and right and looking out at the ocean waves crashing into the small sea stacks that the sea stars were clinging to. As I was watching the waves, I noticed some weird movement in the water. Within a minute, a gray whale surfaced and spouted. I said "DID YOU SEE THAT??!?!?" "Yep!" We continued to watch and noticed dozens more of them farther out in the water. Mere moments later, the same whale that spouted spun in the water and gave us a wave with both of its fins.
This was awesome! Here we were, the only two human beings on this amazing beach and a gray whale was swimming 30 yards out in the water and saying hello to us. We watched for awhile longer with huge grins on our faces and continued to walk down the beach as the whales continued on their own journey. Fabulous, just completely fabulous. I've been on whale watching tours before and have seen quite a few whales on those trips. This was different somehow. This was random and natural and awe-inspiring. We weren't chasing them with sonar on some huge tourist boat - we were simply walking along an amazing beach and in every way, we were communing with nature. It was awesome. Did I mention how awesome it was? :)
As we continued to walk, Bill spotted a sea otter flipping around in the surf. They are so cute but man are those little boogers hard to catch with the camera!
We played in the sand...
...though we weren't the only ones...but we WERE the only ones WITHOUT claws...
...and finally made it down to Point of the Arches and poked around in the tide pools and along the sea stacks. Also very cool, just on a much smaller scale. :)
We watched our time (I was a little paranoid about getting trapped by the high tide) and made our way back towards the north side of the beach.
We stopped to play in a stream that forced its way across the beach and into the sea.
We could have spent HOURS here combing through all the cool river rocks. Here's a smattering of what we found.
There were also these cool designs the water formed in the sand.
They reminded me of trees. Happy Trees. Anybody remember him? You know, the Happy Tree painter guy that came on TV on Saturday mornings? I loved watching that guy. :)
The fog started to roll in and the sky became really overcast. We turned around periodically to take in the view but the fog totally covered Point of the Arches in a blanket of white. It simply could no longer be seen. It was as if we were being escorted from the giant sea stacks to where we had come from. It was kind of eerie - like we were granted this amazing moment in time to see this place and have it all to ourselves and then it disappeared from us as if it was saying that it was time for us to go. We were extraordinarily grateful for this little gift - especially when we arrived at the trail and met a few folks who had just hiked down to view nothing but a sea of white. Again, it was amazing.
The hike back was nice because we were able to take our time (no need to worry about a tide chart any longer) and see a bunch of things that we hadn't noticed on the way down. We also stopped to take more photos. Such as...
We didn't get back to the trailer till 6:30 so it was a long day for the Boys. Bill and I were beat but sucked it up to take them for a short walk around the campground. We hiked a total of 8 miles and, while that isn't really that big of a deal, we were hurting because we had never stopped or sat during that time so our backs, knees, and ankles were on fire. Fortunately, those are things that recover quickly. My ribs were a little sore, but I was pleased that I was able to move around as much as I did with as little pain as I had. 3+ weeks and I'm definitely on the mend. Wooohoooo!
We showered and went to bed around 10pm. It was a fantastic day. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. :)
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