Post-Bar Vacation – Olympic Peninsula, WA – Day 2

N and I got up early today so we could go out to Cape Flattery, which in not actually in the Olympic National Park, but is in the Makah Indian Reservation. We drove out Route 12, which is this windy, twisty but VERY scenic road. We took the trail out to these observation platforms at the trails end. They overlook Tatoosh Island, and are on the NW most point of the Peninsula (and the NW most point of the Lower 48!) While we were out there, we looked on one of the little rocky islands near Tatoosh and saw a whole herd of Northern Sea Lions (took me a while to figure out they were Sea Lions. I thought they were rocks till one moved. Damn them for being so far away. Stupid smart sea lions!)

The hike was nice, and thankfully pretty easy. N said his ankle felt fine, so we headed for the new Shi Shi beach trail to see what has been named America’s most beautiful natural beach. A short drive to the “access” trail head, and we were off. I have to imagine part of the reason the beach stays so nice is that the shortest trail to get to the beach is nearly 3 miles long, and includes a lovely (and very steep) switch back. But it was worth it. The beach was beautiful. Since it was cloudy, the beach just oozed this mystique that made it all the more fascinating.



As we hit the beach, we could see in the distance Point of Arches, a natural southern boundary to Shi Shi (pronounced "shy-shy") Beach. I was dying to see it up close, and N said his ankle was ok, so off we went down the beach.

Ok, so it wasn’t as close as I though it was, but I am so glad we walked all the way there (note, walking on a soft beach is SO annoying. You keep sinking in and losing like half the force of each step.) When we hit Point of Arches, we climbed on the rocks a bit, and got to creep around in some of the caves. Since it was low tide, there was all sorts of stuff to see. If it was high tide, most of the places we climbed on would have been underwater.

After playing on the rocks for awhile, we decided we needed to start hiking back, as we really wanted to get to the car and hopefully to Port Angeles before dark (Route 12 in the dark just sounded unappealing, seeing as how twisty it was.) A few hours, one blister and a very sore ankle later, we were back at the car, heading towards a nice Mexican dinner and a long drive back to Kent, WA (N’s house.) It was an awesome trip, and my “main” vacation hadn’t even started yet!