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Rialto Beach Sea Stacks
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Today we got up around 6:00 AM and took our time getting
ready and had breakfast at the lodge.
After
breakfast we made the 2 hour drive up to Rialto Beach, to see the sea stacks and
a feature called the “hole in the wall”.
The drive up to Rialto was not exciting, but it did require a drive through
the town of Forks.
This is the same town
that the “Twilight” books and movies were set. In the town there is a store
dedicated to Twilight. Rialto beach is a mix of sand and rocks, the upper
portion of the beach was rocky while closer to the water was sandy.
The day was very cloudy, and the beach had a
decent sea mist blowing across it which made the beach feel kind of moody.
The walk out to the “hole in the wall” can
only be accomplished during low tide and about two miles long (one way) on a relatively
flat beach. We got there at 10:30 with max low tide at noon, so we had plenty
of time to walk the wall and back.
Along
the walk, at least at low tide, there are several tide pools that have a variety
of sea life in them.
We were lucky
enough to see a several green anomies, purple and orange starfish, and a tiny
fish.
Since Jim took the underwater
camera, instead of his large camera, he took a few under water pictures of the
anomies.
After the walk on the beach we
got takeout from a small café that had a “Twilight” theme and then headed to
the Hoh Rain Forest.
The Hoh Rain Forest is a temperate rain forest that has a
lot of moss and large trees. It was very crowded when we got there, which was
about 2:15PM. So, we had some trouble finding a parking spot. Once we found a parking spot, we stopped at
the visitor center, which isn’t open, but a park ranger stands outside behind a
piece of plexi glass giving directions and answering questions. We decided to walk the two most popular trails
the spruce trail and the hall of moss trail which were 1.5 miles and 0.8 miles respectively. Both these trails are loop trails, so you can
only go clockwise around them. The
trails were nice, however due to the number of people and social distancing
pressures I felt rushed and didn’t feel like I could truly appreciate the trail. There were several spots for nice photos, but
they would take preparation to set up and frame properly, and I didn’t feel I
could take the time to do that with people constantly coming up behind me. We did not do the 14-mile hike (one way) out
to see Mt. Olympus and its glaciers; we just didn’t have the time or the will
to hike 28-miles round trip.
After visiting the rainforest, we headed back to the lodge. At this point we are still debating what we
will do on Sunday. We might do a few more of the hikes near the lodge and see
the big Sitka spruce tree.
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