October 16, 2015 La Push, Washington

It was 64 today. It started sunny, then clouds moved in and then as a surprise the sun came back out. It was predicted to just be cloudy all afternoon, so it was a treat.

We hiked to Third Beach today. The trail starts with the you are here on the map. As you can see on the map it is wilderness for the next 20 miles down the beach. No development, no roads. We saw a few people backpacking in today. The  path to the beach is a 1.4 mile trail through deep dark forest to the beach. This part of the forest was a ‘blow down’. In 1921 the wind blew all the trees here down, so these are second growth trees, only almost 100 years old.  Very lush and mossy .

 

A very buttressed tree. It was cloudy and cool when we left and when we first got to the beach. Sea Stacks on Third beach.

River crossing the beach. The same killer logs on this beach too. They wash down the rivers and get tossed around the surf, very dangerous during high tide.   

 

It appears that the designated camping spots are on the beach. None of Third beach looked like it was above high tide mark, but is must be we saw a few tents and more campsites. If a storm came in and the tide was high you would just get rolled over by these huge logs. You are required to bring a bear proof container for you food and toiletries. There probably are bears here, but mostly it is for the raccoons.  You see their tracks all over on the beach and today we saw a really big one.

The sun started to come out, the fog was burning off.  These sea stacks are at the south end of the beach. We had lunch and waited for the sun to come out on them. Meanwhile it was pleasantly warm in the sun.

 

Waterfall coming down the cliff from above. You can see by the waves at the base of  the cliff that this is one of those headlands that is impassable and you have to hike up and go over land  1.5 miles to the next beach. We talked to a couple kids who were coming back. They said it was really pretty, but the trail was very steep, with ropes and rope ladders to climb.  Sun actually on the beach.

 

The sun sort of came out on the sea stacks. You probably could get a closer look at them on the next beach. Strawberry flower, goldenrod-that is something I wouldn’t think of growing adjacent to the beach, dandelion, sea star, and yarrow.

 

The sun was out for the return trip. The circle with the white, back and red on it on the tree are the trail markers leaving the beach. The parting shot of the sea stacks.

 

Parting shot of the north headland and stacks.