First Beach & Cape Flattery 2-20-2012

The last day of our adventure, we started out on the beach outside of our room, First Beach, which we actually hadn’t walked on yet. 

We wandered down to the end where there was a stranded Coast Guard buoy.

Leaving La Push we went up to Hwy 112 and out to the most Northwest point of the contiguous United States, Cape Flattery.  It is a gorgeous cave-riddled point of sandstone, teeming with turquoise waters and birds of all types. 

One stack was sprinkled with seagulls.

The birds in this video are black oystercatchers.

Here was a pair of harlequin ducks, which bobbed around in the waves and dove down for their dinner.

We were pleased to find a majestic eagle also enjoying the most NW point. 

Here we are at Cape Flattery with the Cape Flattery Lighthouse on Tatoosh Island in the background.  It would be a fun lighthouse to visit!

We had lunch in Neah Bay, where we saw this oddity.

There were actually 5 bald eagles in this harbor.  See the one on top of the fishing boat mast?

We also got to see a kingfisher as we ate, but I had trouble zooming in on him clearly.

What an amazing weekend!   It was hard to leave the song of the surf behind.  The sound of my little fish tank at night is just a sad substitute. 

Hoh River Trail 2-19-2012

Sunday morning found us gearing up for hiking in the Hoh Rainforest.  Surprisingly we didn’t get rained on there!  We stopped at the Big Sitka Spruce on the way.  It was huge and impressive.  We wanted to see the Big Cedar as well, but that was further south and after our hike we ran out of light and energy.

Outside the ranger station stood this old phone booth.  No longer holding a phone, it has found a job as a moss-holder.

The Hoh River Trail was beautiful, winding through mossy trees… huge ancient conifers, and lichen laden maples. 

Most parts of the trail were just damp, but there were a few muddy spots. 

The Hoh River was a pretty river, with a wide meandering valley of stones.  It was calmer than I thought it would be, but huge trees piled along it and laying across it attested to its strength when full.

Along the way were some pretty waterfalls.

This mossy tree was hugging another.  Dave decided it was a tree hugger.  : )

At about 4 miles in we came to the Cedar Grove.  It has had a couple recent casualties, and the one we found blocking our path was about 6 ft in diameter. 

We hiked in the full 5 miles which was our original plan, to Five Mile Island and enjoyed our lunch with a lovely view of the mist rising off the forest, the snowy trees of the surrounding hills, and this beautiful icy mountain.  I don’t know which mountain it is, so if you do please leave a comment with the answer!

Wildlife was abundant. Mostly we heard birds and squirrels, but at the end of our 10 mi journey, we found a deer along the trail, and as we drove out of Olympic National Park, we found a couple fields of elk.

What an awesome day!