Our second day kid free in Olympic National Park took us west. Way west to the coast. After talking with one of my nurses who had recently ventured out to Olympic National Park we decided to visit Shi Shi Beach. Part of it starts on the Makah Indian Reservation so we had to stop and get a permit from the reservation for our car which was super easy and quick (and good for the next year) and then we drove to the trail head.
The trail was beautiful, green, lush, and muddy. There were plants everywhere. It was about a 2 mile hike down to the coast although being from altitude and going to sea level it was an easy stroll. We had timed it just right so we hit the beach as the tide was going out and had a couple hours to explore before low tide. We walked along all the tide pools. I really wanted to see star fish and the first set we explored had all sorts of crabs and such but no star fish. So we walked up the shore a bit and then hit another set of tide pools and hit the jackpot with starfish. (I promise this post will not have all the million photos of the starfish that I took, only a number of them). We loved that and then slowly continued our way up the beach to the Point of Arches. Along the way we saw a deer frolicking in the ocean waves which seemed so out of place for us being from Colorado. We made our way to the Arches and since it was low tide were able to walk in and out of them and find even more starfish and anemone. We had lunch and just enjoyed our time. We lucked out and the clouds cleared and we had a beautiful day.
After a bit we made our way back up the shore to the hiking trail and then back to our car. When we got to our car, my watch registered that we had walked nearly 10 miles. We drove up the coast about 15 minutes to Cape Flattery which is a beautiful outlook that marks the North Western most part of the Continental US. There were quite a few people there (quite a change from Shi Shi beach where there were very few people), but it was fun to say we hit that landmark.
We drove back to Port Angeles and had a good sea food dinner and crashed early before the sun even set. It was an amazing day.
Hiking Mommy 