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Rich Baldwin
Mister Eddie



Joined: 22 Dec 2001
Posts: 1686 | TRs | Pics
Location: Martinique
Rich Baldwin
Mister Eddie
PostSun Sep 01, 2002 10:04 pm 
Will post to WTA also. Four of us hiked the Olympic Coast from Cape Alava to Oil City the week before Labor Day. I was joined by my son John, my friend Bruce from work, and my brother-in-law Mark who came out from Massachussets for the hike. None of us had tried this classic hike, though Bruce had done the Ozette loop a couple of times. Since Mark had never seen the Olympic Peninsula, we decided to drive around the south side through Olympia, drop my car at Oil City, pick up bear cannisters in Forks, drop Bruce's car at Rialto Beach, and use the Windsox Shuttle to get to Ozette. This would let us show Mark some of the sights along the way, and come out by the north side and over the Kingston ferry. Bruce had other commitments and would only able to go as far as Rialto. He would ferry the rest of us around the unfordable Quillayute River before heading home. Aug. 24, 2002 -- Saturday -- 6.2 miles Tides: 1:38 AM H 7.44 8:16 AM L -0.48 2:36 PM H 7.04 8:30 PM L 1.28 We met Bruce at the Juanita Park and Ride in Kirkland and got a 6:30 AM start. We had great traffic at that early hour and got past Olympia quickly. At a gas stop on State Route 8 we noticed a worrisome oil leak on my car. The dip stick showed too much oil, so we decided to move on and have it checked after the trip. We stopped to see the beautiful Lake Quinault Lodge, a nice museum at the Olympic NF Ranger Station next door, and the world's largest Sitka spruce tree at the north end of the lake. We also stopped at Kalaloch and Beach 3. The weather on the coast was misty, but looked like it might burn off. The Lower Hoh Road to the Oil City trailhead is rough in a couple of spots, with a large sinkhole near US 101. About half the distance is paved. We left my Subaru and piled into Bruce's car, reaching the Recreation and Information Center in Forks about noon. We picked up bear cannisters and the backcountry permit, and learned that a campfire ban was in effect except for beach fires due to fire danger. Kate of the Windsox Shuttle met us in an old Lincoln. She was a friendly woman in a bright yellow polka-dot dress and loaded with corny jokes. Kate waited while we bought take-out lunch at the Caboose in Forks (not bad, but very salty fries), and drove ahead of us to Rialto. She propped the trunk open with her "Lincoln stick" (a short two-by-four) until we had transferred our packs. I started soaking my lentil burrito mix for the evening meal, then Kate drove us up to Ozette telling jokes the whole way. She offered to drive us for free if we could guess her riddle, "what is yellow, lumpy and dangerous?" - we couldn't. With all the sightseeing, we didn't start our hike until about 3:00 PM. The banter and teasing began immediately and seldom let up throughout the trip. The boardwalk to Cape Alava was in good shape. We met lots of people coming out, mostly day hikers. Part of the trail leads through old growth, but there is a marshy area at Ahlstrom's Prarie. We heard sea lions barking when we got down to the beach at Alava. We soon noticed that beach hiking uses a different set of muscles. Our calves were getting a workout. Areas with hard-packed sand at low tide provide the easiest walking, but most of the beach hiking this day was on loose gravel, soft sand, or through larger rocks. Great tidepools and sea stacks here, and Ozette Island is picturesque. Wedding Rocks was fascinating - many of the tumble down boulders feature petroglyphs (some have modern grafitti). We reached the point several hours after high tide and rounded it with little trouble. Continuing on, we rounded the last headland and reached Sand Point about 7:00 PM. We found a very comfortable campsite on he north side. It was not close to the water supply, but it had a driftwood picnic table and clean sandy areas for pitching tents, just inside the forest and screened from the wind by a few trees. The forest floor is thick with salal here. It is a heavily used area with many spots closed for revegetation. No campfires allowed and reservations required. All the campsites at Sand Point have bear wires. It took me a while to find the water - Wish Wish Creek on the south side of Sand Point, a slow little stream with an outlet under a large pile of driftwood. Wish Wish water is so loaded with tannin that it looks like dark tea. Mark and Bruce had their dinner going by the time I got back. The burritos took a whilte but were quite good - it was a variation from Kristin Hostetter's recipe in "Backcountry Cooking" by Dorcas Miller. Mark and Bruce had a second meal when they were ready. Even so, I had made way too much food. Excellent sunset! But since the full moon was only two nights ago and we were camped in trees, no stargazing. Bugs were very light, and remained so all trip. Aug. 25, 2002 -- Sunday -- 7.5 miles Tides: 2:17 AM H 7.28 8:48 AM L -0.08 3:05 PM H 7.04 9:09 PM L 1.12 Long tiring day. No sun - misty all day. John and I enjoyed a good scrambled egg breakfast while Mark and Bruce had the more conventional instant oatmeal. My pack had gotten misadjusted and was riding far too low yesterday. I took the opportunity to adjust the straps. We got a late start about 10:30 AM, well after the morning low tide. Starting out, the hiking was easy walking on packed sand. We came upon fantastic tidepools filled with sea stars, sculpin, sea anenomes, crabs, and one tubeworm. We found quite a few sunflower stars. Many areas today had tough walking - gravel, rocks, and boulders. Trees often block the beach, requiring a detour out to the surf. We could develop a smooth rythm boulder hopping on dry sandstone. When it is damp, points at the top dry first and provide the surest footholds. When wet it can be treacherous, especially when covered with seaweed. Horizontal stretches of exposed rock between the boulders feature miniature valleys cut by the pounding waves. These usually provided good footholds, but sometimes thick mats of seaweed made them slippery. Lots of marine debris had accumulated on the beach, especially styrofoam floats. Most of these are cylindrical and about a foot long. We also noticed large quantities of rope, line, nets, and hard spherical plastic floats (mostly 1' or 2' in diameter). At the rocky headland north of Yellow Banks we rested at a small littoral cave open at both ends. Someone had abandoned a burning campfire here despite the ban. I put it out with seawater. The campsite here looked pretty nice. A tub on the hillside collected fresh water from the seepage. There are several nice streams on Yellow Banks, with much less tannin than Wish Wish. The area is obviously named for its interesting yellow bluffs. We stopped to photograph a mother deer with two juveniles in tow feeding on the hillside browse. The going was rougher south of Yellow Banks. We got held up two hours by the tide at a headland north of the Norwegian Memorial. Someone had built a couple of seats out a mik crate from an Oregon dairy and a wooden vegetable crate that read "Elbe Ost." We read and dozed until about 5:00 PM when the tide was low enough to round the headland. The slippery rocks still wet from the outgoing tide made for hard, rough going. We found a dead octopus, a dead dogfish, and a whale bone on the beach today. Frequently we spotted Great Blue Herons, and sometimes Cormorants. A large pole in the sand marked the Norwegian Memorial. A party of two guys had pitched camp at the beautiful site by the memorial. We visited the five-foot obelisk erected in memory of the crew lost when a Norwegian bark sank on this coast in 1903. Only two survived. Many visitors had paid their respects by decorating the memorial with seashells and small rocks We found a nice campsite on Kayostla Beach midway between the Allen's Bay Trail and a creek. It featured a fire pit with driftwood benches beneath a large Sitka spruce, and a tangled fruit tree of some kind in the center. Since we were south of the permanent campfire ban in the Sand Point-Cape Alava area, we enjoyed a nice one this evening with dinner. I dozed next to it on my sleeping pad for quite a while. Aug. 26, 2002 -- Monday -- 4.8 miles Tides: 2:56 AM H 6.96 9:20 AM L 0.40 3:33 PM H 7.12 9:47 PM L 1.04 The weather was sunny early today. We saw very few people all day, five I think. We made good time hiking on firm sand. Kayostla Beach was misty with sun overhead. Around the first headland to Cedar Creek it cleared up nicely. We could see Carroll Island, Two Man Rock, and Jagged Island, plus a great many sea stacks. I pumped water at a clear stream next to the Starbucks Mine site. We didn't look for the mine. There is a nice one-tent campsite past the driftwood by the stream here. Two headlands interrupt the beach near Jagged Island. We rounded the first easily with the tide out. The Green Trails map marks the southern one "Danger - never round." It looked like they weren't kidding. We took the very short overland route here. Lots of sea stars in this area, all piled on top of each other. Since it was low tide we enjoyed a broad, firm sandy beach and easy hiking. The beach south of the two headlands has three streams, with a pleasant waterfall at the third. We topped off our bottles here. We rounded one more headland (hard work over rocks) and found a great sandy campsite north of Cape Johnson. Since it was 1:30 PM and the tide would be coming in soon, we pitched camp with a vew of Sea Lion Rock, Carroll Island, and Jagged Island and set about drying our damp clothes. Mark had brought a custom hand-made tent of parachute cloth, which only weighed three pounds. He bought it for the Long Trail in Vermont which he hiked last year. He set its side flap open for a view of the sea. John set up our tent on a flat sandy spot. The other tent sites needed scraping. Deer browse grows on the damp slope along the beach. We saw deer tracks all day, but no more deer. I found a small trickle of water on the slope behind a tangled alder while the others played football with a small foam float. A rope had been placed alongside for the scramble up. I filled two buckets and cut my hand on the sharp, crumbling rock. After we washed some clothes Mark went up for another bucket. Later John napped while the rest of us read. I brought William O. Douglas "Of Men and Mountains." It was very peaceful here. We had the whole bay to ourselves all afternoon and evening. I used the campfire to boil water, since I was getting low on stove fuel. Bruce brought two Primus cannisters, which were more than enough, and Mark had an alcohol stove with plenty of fuel. Fantastic night for stargazing. The Milky Way was out in all its glory. I slept by the fire until high tide the next morning. Very pleasant warmth but frequent waking to stir the fire. Aug. 27, 2002 -- Tuesday -- 6.1 miles Tides: 3:36 AM H 6.56 9:49 AM L 0.88 4:00 PM H 7.04 10:27 PM L 1.04 Another sunny, warm day with no mist. We broke camp about 9:30 AM and rounded the difficult, wet, slippery rocks of Cape Johnson. A nice stream trickles down the slope to the beach on the south side. A short distance past the Cape we found the Chilean Memorial, in honor of a ship that foundered in 1920 with loss of all hands. This rectangular monument stands about three feet tall. The clean lines and 1920's style lettering provide a marked contrast with the classical shape of the Norwegian Memorial built 17 years earlier; yet like the Norwegian Memorial it was decorated with shells and rocks. The beach south of the Chilean Memorial was mostly rocky. The next beach after a tricky headland was sandier. Lots of sea stacks here. We rounded one more headland with Dahdayla Island and Cake Rock offshore, where a sandy beach led to the natural arch called Hole-in-the-Wall. Many people had gathered at this beautiful beach with large tree-topped sea stacks. We got through Hole-in-the-Wall before high tide. Eager to get to the car and a burger, we quickly finished the last 1.6 miles of mostly sand to the Rialto Beach Trailhead. We saw two Brown Pelicans flying north along Rialto Beach. After unloading the packs, stretching our legs, and filling our bottles with clean, tannin-free water at the trailhead, we loaded up Bruce's car and drove the Mora Road to River Burgers. Here we enjoyed an excellent lunch and caught up on the news. Mark and John used the coin-operated showers in the back. I picked up a few candy bars for John. Bruce dropped us off at the Third Beach Trailhead down La Push Road and waited while we replenished our bear cannisters. We thanked him for the ride and headed down the easy 1.4-mile trail (an old road) to the beach. An excellent stream runs out of the forest where the trail ends. We often heard a foghorn here. We pitched camp at a nice site about halfway down the beach, set out things to dry, fetched water, washed clothes, and found a few scraps of firewood. Third Beach was picked pretty clean of driftwood. We found a dogfish skin not far from our campsite. Mark and John took a very short dip in the Pacific Ocean. Agressive crows hopped around the camp, waiting to steal what they could. Clean, sandy Third Beach curves around beautiful Strawberry Bay for about a mile between Teawhit Head and Taylor Point, nwith of which may be rounded. Many sea stacks lie off Taylor Point. A waterfall cascades down to the bay about 200-300 years west of the Taylor Trail marker. We enjoyed a great beach fire and superb stargazing. The Milky Way was out again, plus shooting stars and satellites. A blinking beacon could be seen on the horizon. Aug. 28, 2002 -- Wednesday -- 4.6 miles Tides: 4:20 AM H 6.16 10:18 AM L 1.44 4:29 PM H 7.04 11:12 PM L 1.04 Another beautiful sunny day with scrambled eggs for breakfast. Mark had oatmeal - since the Long Trail his trail diet varies little from day to day to keep weight minimal. My water filter quit working - a brand new PUR Guide. The high tide this morning was a bit lower than yesterday, and didn't wash away the remains of our beach fire. We cleaned it up as best we could and got a late start, about 10:40 AM, heading over the Taylor Trail. This involved a difficult ladder and scramble up 300 feet. We crossed paths with a young couple here and several times later in the day. A beautiful wall of ferns covers a boulder about halfway up. We enjoyed the grand view of Strawberry Bay above the waterfall. Three campsites lie along the overland trail on the ridge, two looked fairly nice. After scrambling back down from Taylor Point, a half-mile of soft, sandy beach led us to Scott's Bluff. We were too late to round it and scrambled up the ladder for the overland route, which wasn't too bad. Coming down we reached a good clear stream (Scott Creek) and talked with a group heading north. The beach was firmer from here all the way to Toleak Point. We easily rounded the headlands by Giants Graveyard and Strawberry Point and finished up the last mile to Toleak Point. We saw more people between Third Beach and Scott's Bluff than anywhere on the North Wilderness Coast. The most comfortable campsites at Toleak Point are beneath the trees on the north side of the point, but the water supply is Jackson Creek on the windier south side so we pitched camp there. Like many of the beach streams, it sports a large pile of driftwood where it exits the brush at the edge of the beach. Beyond the driftwood it runs about 1.5 feet deep and is slightly colored by tannin. A pit toilet with an outstanding view is located nearby up a hill. Not far beyond it stands the decrepit Toleak Point Shelter, an old A-frame with missing doors. We camped in a well-used site behind a large driftwood log. Previous tenants had decorated the log with an old rope, a common theme on the coast which the Park Service discourages. This was the most heavily impacted site we had visited so far, more so than Third Beach. At least five fire pits lay within a few feet of the campsite, one right amongst the driftwood and full of rusty cans. Mark and I kicked down a few of the excess pits. We found considerable trash, all left by careless hikers. Little marine debris here. We cleaned it up as best we could. A 3-foot tall split log at the campsite made a nice table. I used it to relube my water filter and got it working again. Fine sand grains had broken the O-ring seals. We noticed the young couple pumping the brackish water in front of the driftwood. Mark took my bucket and helped them get cleaner water from the stream. We set up our beach fire just after high tide. The damp sand was teeming with sand fleas - they simply covered the beach. We cooked dinner by the fire, which the sand fleas kept exploring a bit too closely. They would hop up to the fire, turn to hop away, and struggle for about a second before they fell over and cooked. They look like tiny shrimp, and are in fact crustaceans not insects. After the meal we strolled down the beach to photograph a sea stack with a natural arch. We watched storm clouds moving south, but still were able to enjoy the stars. Aug. 29, 2002 -- Thursday -- 7.5 miles Tides: 5:10 AM H 5.76 10:49 AM L 2.00 5:01 PM H 6.96 Like yesterday, the morning tide wasn't high enough to wash away the previous night's campfire. After cleaning it up and an oatmeal breakfast we got going about 9:55 AM. The weather continued sunny and warm. We walked about 2/3 mile on a good beach to the ladder for the Goodman Creek Trail. This overland route bypasses a dangerous headland that should not be rounded. The climb up is stiff, then leads down to cross Falls Creek and Goodman Creek. I had brought the Green Trails maps, which were a bit too small in scale to register this area very well. The Custom Correct maps may be preferable here. Once we figured things out, Goodman Creek turned out to be an easy ford today. Apparently it is not always fordable. From the creek the trail heads steeply back up, and then down a ladder to another firm sandy beach that runs for two miles to Mosquito Creek. We found nice elk tracks here. We only saw one party at Mosquito Creek where we initially planned to camp, but decided to make Jefferson Cove today and shorten the final day of hiking. An overly decorated campsite with a shirt on a flagpole influenced this decision. Three or four beach campsites are north of the creek here, backed by banks of magenta paintbrush and pearly everlasting. The toilet and several wooded campsites are located up the Hoh Head overland trail. One of the headlands south of Mosquito Creek should only be rounded at extra low tide. Since we weren't to have one this day or the next, we took the Hoh Head Trail overland. This was hard work with many ups and downs. There are several campsites along this overland trail. We crossed several muddy trickles and one good stream above Hoh Head. Above Hoh Head we met a man with his two sons, carrying a small picnic cooler despite having climbed the steep ladders from Jefferson Cove and rounded the headland past Diamond Rock. They followed us down. At one point I noticed all three of them bunched up on a ladder above me - not good. I said something about it but he waved it off. They were planning to head right out and didn't have a tide chart. I showed them mine. Despite its being only an hour until high tide, they insisted on going around the headland while carrying some foam bouys they collected on the beach. Mark was washing the waves splashing on the rocks. I tried to dissuade them but to no avail. He seemed like a nice guy, but it made me angry that he was risking his kids' necks in addition to his own. At Jefferson Cove a little stream comes down the slope near the Hoh Head Trail ladder. Someone had dug out a basin for it to flow through. The cove is secluded with a few tentsites. After the man and his boys dissapeared around the headland, we had solitude for the night. I found quite a few tracks - deer, racoon, and possibly coyote (John thought it was a dog). Mark and I both collected a few foam bouys. Clouds were coming in and it looked like we might be in for rain. I had hoped to wash clothes but changed my mind since they wouldn't have a chance to dry. John built the campfire - a real beauty. Nice flat stones for holding stoves, pans and dishes were plentiful. After a good meal we switched to warmer clothes. The temperature had dropped noticeably. Using the campfire for boiling water sure cuts down on fuel usage - I cooked for two on one large MSR bottle all week. Aug. 30, 2002 -- Friday -- 1.9 miles Tides: 12:04 AM L 1.04 6:09 AM H 5.36 11:28 AM L 2.56 5:43 PM H 6.88 We awoke to a misty morning, but no rain at all. The last headland was conglomerate rock - the only other conglomerate we noticed had been near Hole-in-the-Wall. Two sandy spots gave respite to clambering over the rocks. One of these sported an elaborate driftwood shelter. After the headland it was a short distance to the Hoh River. A house and outbuilding across the river at its mouth were all boarded up - a pity, as the house had nice lines. The Hoh is a pretty river colored by glacial mill. After taking trails-end photos, we showed Mark the Hoh Rain Forest before a late lunch at the Forks Coffee House. The weather cleared up a few miles from the coast. Mark found the Hoh to be a spiritual place, I view a wholeheartedly endorsed. We had time to drive up to Hurricane Ridge and take a short hike there before driving on to the Kingston Ferry. The wildflowers had mostly gone to seed, but the sky was clear and the views were grand. Overview: A spectacular hike and not to be missed. Five miles a day on level ground may sound easy, but it isn't. The hike is pretty strenuous. Maps and tide charts are essential. Web sites for info on this hike: Olympic National Park Coastal Hiking: http://www.nps.gov/olym/wic/csthike.htm ONP Wilderness Information Center: http://www.nps.gov/olym/wic/ Permits and Reservations: http://www.nps.gov/olym/wic/permits.htm Windsox Shuttle Service: http://www.windsox.us/

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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker



Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 23956 | TRs | Pics
Location: Cle Elum
Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker
PostMon Sep 02, 2002 8:06 am 
Good lord what a post! Sounds like a great trip. TB

"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." — Abraham Lincoln
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