It had already been a long day by the time we navigated the windy road down off Hurricane Ridge and traveled, once again, along the south shore of Lake Crescent. The lake is beautiful, but I was really starting to feel stuck in this one little area. We’d been back and forth along this stretch 3 times now, and it was time to strike out to new territory – after all, our reserved campsite for the night was out by the beach!

We were hungry though, so we stopped by the La Poel picnic area, a site we’d passed with curiosity several times. At La Poel we had a nice lakefront spot under the mossy giants to break out the stove and cook lunch, before heading out again, past Fairholme Campground (our home the night before), and finally into uncharted territory.

Not long after passing Fairholme, we encountered the road to Sol Duc, a 15-mile one-way road into the rainforest, down to a lodge, campground, hot springs, and a trailhead. With every mile, we were increasingly anxious about whether or not we could actually get all the way to the trailhead. Like most of the accessible spots in Olympic, Sol Duc is really popular, and we were now here just past mid-day on a Sunday – there was a good chance that the lots were full, and we wouldn’t have any good backup options.

The rangers at the entry gate for Sol Duc didn’t give any indication we’d have a problem, but as we approached the end of the line, we started seeing cars along the roadside, obviously overflow parking. We pressed on though, and arrived just as somebody was pulling out. Score! (We also saw our first Steller’s Jay of the trip as we walked through the parking lot. Score again!)

Sol Duc Falls, I have to say, turned out to be probably our least favorite stop of the day – although still very good. The trail was nicely graded, the forest was beautiful, the falls were impressive (though smaller than I imagined) – but there were SO many people. It was hard to feel the immersion in nature without also accidentally overhearing some family’s discussion, or constantly stepping aside to greet and let another group pass. I’ve got nothing against people, generally, and I’m glad people are out in the woods like this, but, selfishly, I have a hard time appreciating some of it without feeling the quiet of a forest that’s NOT full of people. I have no doubt others felt the same way about me, for what it’s worth.

This was another trail (like at Marymere) where the trail and the river didn’t really coexist for a long time. In fact it wasn’t obvious that we were following a river upstream, but then at the falls the two suddenly converged, and the trail crossed a bridge just below the falls, and just above a narrow rocky gorge. The falls themselves are interesting, in that there are three primary jets of water that flow left to right into a gorge that runs at right angles to it – in other words the flow hits the gorge and makes an immediate right turn to flow downhill through the gorge. It really is pretty, but the actual drop is only about 40 feet.

Sol Duc Falls Key Parameters:
Length – 1.8 miles
Ascent – +/- 200 feet
Trailhead – 47.95486, -123.83472

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On our way out of Sol Duc, we made a short stop at a place called Salmon Cascades, a spot along the Sol Duc river where during the right time of year (July and August), you can watch salmon leaping up the cascades in their attempt to get upstream. We missed peak salmon run by at least a month, but there was one large (dead) fish laying on a rock on the opposite bank. I guess there are always latecomers, a few at the tail end of the bell curve.

Leaving Sol Duc, we headed east and slowly made our way out of the steep valleys of the Olympic Range and into the coastal plain. We had to admit we were starting to wear down. We’d already hiked 6-ish miles – which isn’t necessarily a LOT, but, we’ll just say it had been a long day already.

Our next intended destination was Rialto Beach, which we had planned to reach an hour or so before sunset. Low tide basically coincided with sunset, and we were hoping not only to enjoy the sunset itself, but to explore some of the tide pools in the area – best experienced, of course, at low tide. So our timing was perfect, but our endurance, we would soon find out, was waning.

On our journey thus far (almost two whole days at this point), we’d seen lots of references to Sasquatch (aka Bigfoot). Paintings, life-sized carvings, steel silhouettes… Bigfoot was everywhere. As we got farther east, and out in the vicinity of Forks, we started seeing lots of Twilight references adding to the roadside decor. Twilight was set primarily in Forks, WA, but my wife pointed out that the gang had made at least one trip to the big city of Port Angeles, so we’d really been solidly in Twilight territory most of the day. We passed the Twilight Cafe, which featured a warning that “By Treaty, No Vampires Allowed Past This Point”. We passed a hotel that informed us that “Edward Cullen Never Slept Here”. (Because, he’s a vampire. Vampires don’t sleep.. ha ha, get it?)

I swear I’m not a Twilight fan, never watched or read any of it. I learned every bit of these references from my wife! Although I have to admit a vague awareness of the existence of both vampires AND werewolves in those stories. Team Jacob would have been disappointed.

After about an hour of driving, we started to draw near to the coast – we could tell primarily because there was a pervasive mist driving in from the Pacific to a point about 1/2 mile inland. After parking, we made our way through the driftwood to the beach proper. The ocean was rough, with at least 4 separate lines of breakers extending far out beyond the near-shore sea stacks. Each line of breakers threw mist and spray into the air.

The beach was a little eerie. Gray sand, gray water, bare trees facing the beach constantly on the verge of contributing to the enormous piles of driftwood piled up at the high-tide line, and a pall of fog everywhere. Our timing was perfect, but… no tidepools were to be found anywhere. Just sand.

I shot a quick text to a friend, who told me that the tidepools at Rialto were wonderful, but you had to make the trek up toward Hole In The Wall (a prominent sea stack with a prominent hole), about 1.5 miles north up the beach, to get to them. We started walking that way, but the sand was soft, and it was hard going. There didn’t seem to be any good solid footing anywhere. Usually the sand is pretty firm where there’s a little moisture in it, right above the level where the waves reach, but not here – and even when we did find a firm patch, it didn’t last long. Perhaps it was because we’d reached the end of a long day, but it didn’t take long for both of us to realize that a 3 mile journey through soft grabby sand was not something we were ready to tackle.

That decision was reinforced at roughly the halfway mark, when we encountered Ellen Creek. I knew a creek crossed the beach here, but it was deeper and swifter than I expected. Some people were navigating the piles of driftwood to get across, others were taking shoes off and rolling up pants legs to wade across the braided “mouth” of the creek. We found a large piece of driftwood to sit on and watch the waves.

Right here next to the creek, there was a large rock with some tidepools in it. It served as evidence that they really did exist, and a quick search through satellite photos of the area confirmed that the shoreline got very rocky in another 3/4 mile. But we were done. And that’s ok. The pending sunset was beautiful.

So we sat, and talked, and took it all in. It had been a heck of a day, with at least three different, distinct ecosystems. Some great hiking, some beautiful scenery… it had been enough.

Before the sun set completely, we made our way back south along the beach and jumped back into Bones for the final drive of the day, a short hop over to Mora Campground, where we could still hear the surf and smell the salty mist in the air while camping under the large spruces and hemlocks.

For dinner, we cooked up ground turkey, our carrots, celery and onion, some more garlic, some canned tomatoes, spinach, a little balsamic vinegar and the rest of our penne pasta with some parmesan to make a hearty but easy one-pot meal. It had been a great day!

Tomorrow, we would venture up into the Hoh Rainforest, and then leave Olympic behind as we traveled east toward Mt. Rainier.

Get Out There!