October 15, 2015 La Push, Washington

The Ides of October was sunny and in the 70’s. Perfect.

We are camped in a Tsunami zone. The whole coast of Oregon and Washington is very close to the Cascadia subduction zone in the ocean. The northern continent plates are sliding over one another, when they move there are huge earthquakes and they cause big tsunami waves. They seem to happen about once every 500 years. We are due for another anytime. They had a tsunami drill this morning, we are camped right under one of the sirens. John did the drill so we know where to go if a tsunami hits. You only have minutes from the earth quake to get to higher ground and safety. They told John it was 10 minutes from the siren to when he got there. If there is one we  will be toast-riding around in a tsunami wave with all those big logs. We are camped on First beach, where the green square is. Yesterday we hiked Rialto beach to the north. Today we hiked Second beach, where the red dot is. Tomorrow we will hike Third Beach. You can hike south from here in 20 miles of wilderness beach, except for the Hoh Indian reservation at the Hoh river half way it is also uninterrupted .

 

You hike 0.7 miles through deep dark rainforest to 2 miles of sandy beach with more sea stacks. This tree sprouted on top of another big log or stump, it sent down a bunch of roots to the ground, then the log underneath decomposed.

 

Our first view of the beach. Sea stacks on the beach.

 

There was another arch in this headland. John wanted to know why we hiked around when we could have gone through the arch. The ocean never gets low enough to safely  get to it, that’s why. More sea stacks.

The next headland that is impassable, 2 miles down the beach. We found this huge buoy from Japan. Many things from Japan wash up on the beach, esp after that big tsunami they had a few years ago.

 

Sea stacks on the headland. John went into this sea cave then came out pretty fast when the waves came in, it would be pretty easy to get trapped in there during higher tide. He said all the sand inside was wet. It was so warm today that at the secluded end of the beach we ripped our clothes off and jumped in the ocean. Then had lunch and sunbathed.

Sea stack on the way back and back through the rainforest. There was a nice trail.

Ferns and cool trees along the trail.

   

John cooked dinner when we got back. What a sweetheart. People are starting to fill up the campground for the weekend. John is talking to the neighbors- a father and son who came out with their wives in two coaches. The son grows hops for beer on his farm.

John in the sunset again. There were more clouds, so sunset was more colorful tonight.

They say the coast is more or less like it was when the Indians lived here 100’s of years ago. The moon rising over this log that looks like a dugout canoe kind of looks like that to me.