Sporkless at Second Beach

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Wild Celtic Rose

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Life has been more than just a little intense lately, and it became apparent to me that I was long overdue for a solo backpacking trip out on the coast. (like two years overdue as was evidenced by the cheese and beef jerky in various stages of decomposition/creating new life in my bear cannister)

I decided that my only chance to get away (with good weather no less) was to leave the market (a ten hour work day) as soon as the vendor envelopes were turned in at 3:00 PM and run like heck to the coast.

Everything was packed up and by my front door ready to go, all I had to do was get out of there, get home, grab the cold/frozen stuff out of fridge/freezer and hit the road. The only glitch was that I could not find my titanium spork. I love that spork and it’s just not the same going without it.

I was on Hwy 16 at 3:30 PM.

It was smooth sailing all the way to Port Angeles where I stopped to get my backcountry permit at the WIC (Wilderness Information Center) I knew I could self register at Mora, but that would require taking a different fork in the last road and then back tracking, so I opted for the stop in Port Angeles.

I was in and out of there in record time and was on the LaPush Road entering the Quileute Reservation on final approach for the trail at 7:30 PM. Sunset was at 9:00 PM, so I still had plenty of time to make final pack adjustments and get down the (luckily, very short) trail and get my tent set up before sunset.

One of the advantages of having been a backcountry ranger and a river guide is that I don’t mess around when it comes to setting up/tearing down camp-I learned to become extremely efficient, even more so when there’s no one around trying to “help”. I figure the faster I can do it, the faster I can get to the very serious task of relaxing.

This is the scene at 8:30 PM; one half hour before sunset.

I was too tired between the five hours of sleep I got the night before, the long work day and the long drive to worry about a fire, so I dined on smoked salmon, cheese, crackers and kalmata olives with a small glass (and by glass, I mean my purple titanium mug of red wine.

I slept through the low tide the next morning (4:05 AM) which is just fine with me and spent the day walking up and down the beach and reading real paper books.

I managed to finish “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” and “The Hunger Games”

I spent the afternoon collecting firewood, which can be a real chore on a popular beach at this time of the year when the best bits are picked over, but I managed to gather enough to build a fine fire on which to cook dinner. One of the great joys of staying over on Sunday night is that when others leave, you can often find extra wood around their sites. Not so at this time of year as everyone had burned what they had. I’m not certain the energy expenditure versus calorie intake was a fair exchange on this one, but it was worth it to have a lovely fire and grilled seafood for dinner.

Once I knew I would be able to cook dinner (shrimp and scallops frozen in half strength marinade) I headed out to do some tidal pool exploring since the afternoon low tide had arrived.

This is considered “social hour” among coastal backpackers. We tend to give each other space when in camp. Even on a busy Saturday night like the night before, you feel very much at peace and alone due to the courtesy given. On one of these more crowded beaches we share with day users (I prefer ShiShi or Toleak for solitude, but didn’t have time to get out there this trip) all you need to do is hike away from where the trailhead spills out to set up your camp.

At low tide, everyone converges on the best rock formations/pools and searches for sea stars, urchins, crabs and other critters. Lots of shouts of “Hey, check out this crab” or “Look at the color of this starfish” are often heard.

While it wasn’t a minus tide, there were plenty of critters to enjoy observing.

After that, it was time to wander back and cook dinner now that the fire had burned down to a proper bed of coal.

Since I froze the seafood in marinade, wrapped it tightly and kept the bear canister in the shade, it was still nice, cool and safe. I didn’t want to rush and try to cook it the first night as I wanted to relax and really enjoy it. (it was still frozen when I arrived anyway)

Dinner was shrimp, scallops, sweet onions and bell peppers grilled over a driftwood fire.

With the obligatory s’mores for dessert.

and a cup of wine of course

After dinner and securing food/smelly trash from bears, cougars, raccoons, etc… (thankfully the bear and cougar population seems to be thinner here than at Ozette, the raccoons are not german shepherd size like at Rialto and there were none of the infamous Sand Point ROUS in evidence, that aspect of the trip was uneventful.) it was time for more sunset photography.

I wasn’t the only one with that idea an I had to giggle at this poor guy (who reminded me a bit of Kevin Freitas) dancing around on one foot as the tide was coming in at him.

After another wonderful night of sleeping on the beach, being lulled to sleep by the sound of the crashing waves, I awoke to another beautiful morning.

There was even a rainbow out over the water.

Sadly, it was time to leave and return to the working world, but it was a wonderful, relaxing journey.

It was time well spent, as I did a lot of thinking, reading, dreaming and feel like myself again.

I even encountered a potential “hot wolf boy” (for those of you who have been sheltered from popular culture, it’s a Twilight reference and I was on the reservation side of the “treaty line”) that I always joke about wanting to find out there, but never do.

While the attention and effort to talk to me were appreciated, upon closer inspection, he was too young for my tastes, so I had to leave him be. Oh well… I hear they don’t house train properly and tend to not behave well if you take them home, so it’s all for the best

Here are the rest of the photos in a slide show…

If your reader or browser doesn’t support the slide show, the photos can be viewed by making with the clicky clicky here…

Oh yeah… I’d better hit up backcountry.com and order another spork.

~ L

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Shi Shi to Point of the Arches Backpack

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Wild Celtic Rose

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I had a brief opportunity to escape phone calls, emails and snail mail relating to my mother’s death while waiting for paperwork to be mailed from the Public Administrator’s office. (after a final call to the Medical Examiner’s office on Saturday, it was confirmed there was nothing more I could do until the paperwork arrived Tuesday or Wednesday.)

I was close to melt down, so it was time to escape the real world and get to the ocean.

Not just any beach mind you. One of the most difficult (distance wise and logistically) places to get to where I’d be subjected to as few people as possible.

Although I would have been just fine alone, the Icky Boy, who was already sore and tired from a backpacking trip in the Olympics turned right around and took me out to North Coast Wilderness of the (Olympic National) Park. (I can neither confirm nor deny that there was whining on the trek out)

Sunday morning, it was starting to heat up in the Puget Sound Region and even though we’d be back before the worst of the heat wave (a record breaking 103 in Seattle and 105 here in Tacoma)

Shi Shi Beach inovles getting a National Park Service Wilderness permit, then stopping in Neah Bay for an annual recreation permit ($10 for the year and the money is used for trails) from the Makha Nation. (note, the most Northwestern point in the contiguous 48 states, Cape Flattery, is here)

Once you have all your permits, the next trick is to find parking. There is no overnight parking at the trailhead, so an overnight backpacker needs to use (and pay for) secured parking .6 to 1 mile from the trailhead (depending on whose yard you park in) and then walk or get a ride to the trailhead. In the past, I’ve used the parking that is a little over half a mile from the trailhead, but this time we pulled in to “Donna’s Parking” about a mile away. The rumors were true and Donna’s husband Dana (a very nice guy who works for the tribe under an EPA grant running an air quality monitoring program) gave us and our gear ride to the trailhead. Since I used to run a class 1 air quality monitoring station at Canyonlands National Park, we had plenty to chat about.

I had been reading Twitters and Facebook updates on my phone as we were driving through Port Angeles and was already reading a lot of complaints about the heat building up in the Puget Sound region. We almost felt guilty as we were so cool in the shade that we put long sleeved shirts on.

We hit the trail and were pleasantly surprised to not only have cool weather, but to find that in late summer after a dry spell, there is much less mud that usual. Normally, the second part of the trail is a soul and boot sucking mess of shin deep mud.

As we hit the first overlook, we could see that the rocks and islands were shrouded in fog.

It is two miles from the trailhead to the beach on a gently graded trail/old logging skid road and then a sharp drop down a cliff to the sand below. Since it wasn’t muddy and slimy (I usually go in the Spring/Fall) my trademark “crabwalk/butt scoot maneuver was not necessary)

Once on the beach, one can pitch a tent anywhere above the expected high tide line, or continue on to Petroleum or Willoughby Creek or if you’re lucky like we were, all the way (2 additional miles) to a site right at Point of the Arches.

We had met a group in the parking lot who were leaving and had just cleared out of the camp site I’ve been coveting for over five years. Right at the rocks where you can pitch your tent on the beach but be in the shade of trees all day.

At that point, the “race” was on. At that tide, no one was going to come in from the South and snake my spot (there is no overland trail past the point and it can only be passed at a tide of 4′ or less)

I was a woman on a mission. When we got to the bottom of the cliff, I saw a man with a couple other people not far behind us. I gave him the stink eye and hauled butt down the beach.

My heart sank when I found kayaks near the spot I had my heart set on, but they were just a bit North. We Got THE spot at the point.

By this time, the fog and clouds had moved in and we were actually cold.

Some of the bits of driftwood were a bit too big for a nice little fire… (note the creative wood breaking going on in the background)

Once camp was set up, it was time to explore the tide pools as the tide was going out and the diffused light was nice for photography (the fire was not lit until we got back)

My reputation as “weather witch” is still intact. We had clouds and fog to cool our hike in, but the sun broke through and provided us with a lovely sunset and later moon and stars.

We had cheese, crackers, smoked salmon and a nice old fine zinfandel for “happy hour” and then grilled prawns and veggies for dinner. (in addition to my weather witch duties, I’m also the “foodie”)

One must carefully clean camp and store food after cooking something like that.

Hard sided bear cannisters are required in coastal areas of the park. The bears usually leave them alone, but the mutant fire eyed German Shepard size raccoons from hell are another matter entirely.

Monday morning, I was faced with an assault upon our camp that I had never experienced before.

We were raided by killer banana slugs and they wanted our food…

There were at least half a dozen crawling on our around our food cannisters.

It was turning out to be a weird trip.

Everything with my Mom’s death and all the pressure to make instant legal and financial decision before you even being to wrap your head around the death more or less process it or actually grieve was making me crazy (and not in a good way) which is why we were there. Surpirsingly, the waves pounding the shore and the songs of birds did not relax me; especially not the first night when the brain gerbils were working overtime to make me insane.

Oh well, if you’re going to be kept awake by attacking brain gerbils and nightmares; it might as well be in a pretty place. (with no cell phone or Internet access) Just give me my coffee and no one gets hurt!

We moved our coffee and breakfast setup out into the sun so that we’d have a view while waiting for the tide to recede so that we could adventure South.

We put our food away (being extra cautious due to the killer banana slug incident) and headed North around the point.

I opted to back off and head to our Point as the tide approached it’s lowest point. This area was rocky and I had since decided that I wanted to spend as much time as possible barefoot. All of my pictures were taken barefoot; it was my theme, my refusal to subject myself to the wearing of shoes. (unfortunately, this resulted in my feet getting burned/tanned just enough that my Z shaped Chaco (sandal) stipes are gone [sad face]

I really get into my work.

I was excited to find this guy (or girl) with many arms…

I believe what we have here is a certified star fish (OK, Pacific Sea Star) Orgy. Apparently they like to diversify with the anemones. What ever floats your boat (or tentacles as the case may be)

Let’s step away from the sea stars now shall we? That’s right, slowly, keep you hands where we can see them…

and on a walk to the creek, I found this little spermy lookin’ guy (on come on, you all thought the same thing when you saw it)

I also has some fun with seagulls later in the afternoon when we walked to the creek for water (which we teated)

After exploring the tide pools and hiking to the creek for water, it was happy hour (hey, it was 5:00 PM somewhere and we were ready for our wine (did we mention that it was old vine zinfandel?) and smoked salmon.

After grilling the rest of the previous night’s dinner, we settled down for some reading, and then I scampered off take some sunset pictures…

After that, it was time to sit by the fire where I finally unloaded a bit about how much stress this was creating and much pressure I was feeling. It was good to cry a bit and let it out. I slept better that night.

We were up bright and early on Tuesday morning because the Icky Boy had a board meeting and I had to get paperwork that was supposed to be sent by then filled out and back to the crematorium (I don’t know why it was such a rush on my end, nothing will be done until her doctor signs the death certificate; it’s a safe bet to say he’s in no rush because it doesn’t affect him. If it doesn’t affect him, he doesn’t deal with it.

Once again, the weather witch provided cool moist air to hike out in:

It was a hot Hot HOT drive home (and a fairly warm climb up the cliff followed by the mile walk back to the parking area)

The trip didn’t bring me peace or healing (too early for both) but it did get me away from phone calls and emails (all of which were nothing I could act on until Tuesday) and distracted me with running through the sand barefoot chasing shiny things to photograph.

It worked as best anything could and that’s a good thing.

The rest of the pictures are available here: