02/02/20 - Winter Tides at Dungeness Spit

There will be some better tides later in February. We'll aim for three foot tides and report back.

07/12/19 - Second Beach - Low Tide

The big news was starfish everywhere, but more on that in another post. For this post, the big news was a journey out to a usually inaccessible sea stack and getting a chance to explore its caves, beaches and tide pools.

01/17/17 - Dungeness Spit - The New Year

The spit varies greatly with the tide. The gap between low tide and high tide is often six feet of water. At low tide the beach can be broad and easy going. At high tide it is narrow, just a bit of sand and lots of driftwood to clamber over. In the autumn, the tides make hiking the spit difficult. There are some nice low tides, but only at night, but as winter sets in, the low tides cycle into daylight. By early February there are long low tides, under three feet, right in the middle of the day, so we expect to visit the spit more often as the season progresses.

10/12/16 - Second Beach

09/27/16 - Third Beach

It is a pretty, easy path through forest and fern. There are ups and downs, then a descent to the sea. The beach is guarded by a barrier of driftwood, so be prepared to clamber a bit. You can head north to the headland there or south as we usually do. This means crossing the little stream that runs from the forest and across the sand to the sea. The best hiking is at low tide, below three feet at La Push, but we made our way south towards the high headlands there to see the little waterfall.

We didn’t make it as far as sometimes. The tide was a bit high, and we had left our shoes at the stream. We also had some company. A large cat had crossed the beach not long before us. That was our excuse at least.

06/05/13 - China Beach on Vancouver Island

07/12/12 - Second Beach

The beach was easy walking, just a broad sand plain. There seemed to be more sand than usual, and some of the rocks we'd see along the shore appeared to be more deeply buried than we remembered. This was particularly noticeable on narrow section of beach towards the sea cave with many familiar rocks less visible and a deeply cut stream channel running through the sand.

In contrast, the entrance to the sea cave was rocky. All of the sand there had washed out. The tide was low, but not a real low low tide, so we didn't visit the hidden beaches past the cave, though we could see a lot more rocks and a lot less sand.

We had a nice picnic lunch on the beach, and made our way home through the forest, pausing to admire the Treasure Tree which was sporting a variety of pretty stones, bright red berries and feathers. We're not sure who contributes, but they've done a great job. Unlike Rialto Beach nearby, Second Beach is a hidden beach, not visible from the road and a special treasure because of this.

07/26/10 - Sand Reckoning

03/27/10 - Long Beach, Astoria and Environs

• The Long Beach - Yes, there really is a long beach there, quite long.
• The Columbia River Maritime Museum - gave us a feel for the river, the sea, and those who work at their meeting place.
• Astoria, Oregon - we had lunch at Gunderson's in Astoria
• River View Dining - the best barbequed oysters ever, in South Bend
• Lewis and Clark Interpetive Center - the story of the expedition
• Fort Clatsop - The Lewis and Clark expedition spent its first winter here.
• Leadbetter Point State Park - the park at the northern tip of the Long Beach peninsula
• Miscellaneous - a few pictures from the road

11/13/09 - Second Beach and Winter

We arrived to mixed cloudy skies and a falling tide, but to the west we could see the clouds and pillars of rain closing. We sat on a log and ate our tuna salad sandwiches from Good To Go. A fellow visitor warned us the weather was changing. Then we headed south along the beach. The sky grew grayer and darker. The water was a bit high to make it to the sea cave and the wind was rising from the south. We turned about and headed back. The drizzle started, then turned to rain. At least we didn't have a monkey playground of wet logs to clamber over. We dodged to the muddy safety of the woods and made our way home.

09/16/09 - Ruby Beach

Ruby Beach isn't the longest beach in the area. We spent about half an hour exploring. Still, it is one of the gems of Olympic National Park.

07/31/09 - Rialto Beach

This time the beach was shrouded with Pacific fog, as it often is in the summer. The seastacks were invisible until we were nearly upon them. There was a lot of driftwood, but it was generally piled up high on the beach, even with a high low tide. In another sign of summer, the little river about a mile from the parking lot ran under the sand to the sea. Most of the year we have to ford the stream, but this time we walked right over it without even noticing.

We made it as far as the first headland climb, up into the rain forest. It was almost like climbing a ladder made of tree roots. At the top, we could look through the foliage and see the rocky outcrop that jutted out to the sea like a lost Mayan temple in some adventure romance. We turned around there. We like our adventures, but we like them bite sized.

07/09/08 - Second Beach: To The Seastack

This July 9th was different. This time no confounding body of water appeared as we approached the seastack. Yes, the sand was wet, but we were able to approach the base of the seastack dryshod. The low tide was 0.8 feet, but we had been to Second Beach with lower tides. It took a combination of low tide and sand flow to create the miraculous sandbar we traversed.

The base of the seastack was a jewel box of mussles and barnicles and lesser shells, here and there decorated with dazzling star fish. There were little caves, some worn into the stone and plain, others decorated like the seastack base. We made our way around the seastack, away from the beach. By carefully timing the waves we made it to the small beach between the large landward seastack and the smaller seastack behind it. We explored a bit, admiring our own adventurousness, our good fortune, and the wonderful scenery.

Not ones to press our luck, we made our way back after a brief sojourn, and explored the beachward face of the seastack. We have seen people climbing seastacks, and we considered climbing this one, but we Kalebergs have more the grace of gazebos than gazelles, so we settled for a sea level tour.

Our return to the beach along the sandbar was straightforward. This is just as well. We always like to be able to retrace our steps. We then explored Second Beach to the south, wandering about the Pirate Cave and gawking at anemones in the various tidepools. When we returned to the sandbar that led to the seastack the tide had risen. A fair bit of the sandbar was already submerged. We had seized our opportunity. Time and tide, we knew, wait for no man.