Second Beach

Been away on a camping trip with 8 other women, to the western-most edge of the continental US. This picture is one of my favorites from the trip but I didn't take it today (I'm not going to back-blip so I decided to cheat). 

Out there, much of the coast is part of the Olympic National Park or it's part of a First Nations Reservation. I guess there are so many beautiful beaches that they got tired of coming up with unique names and reverted to ordinals. 

Anyway, we camped on the headlands overlooking Kalaloch Beach, and you can walk for miles in either direction (this morning, there was a -2.2 tide and you would seriously not believe how far out the tide was). Second Beach (and its siblings First and Third), have dramatic, enclosing headlands so you have to hike up and over the ridge to get down to the beach. This photo shows some of the sea stacks there with several members of our group down the beach aways. We had enormous luck to get a sunny, warm day to explore the beach - and the tide was exceptionally low by later in the afternoon.

On Wed, my sister and I did a 10 mile hike in the Hoh River Valley, which is a rain forest. On that day, it was very unlike a rain forest - 90F and practically no humidity. Good thing most of the hike was in the trees. I think the many dozens of tourists were disappointed!

Lots of eating and sitting around the campfire is how we spent much of the rest of our time out there. I will be glad to sleep in my own bed tonight though.