Newer Entries   

09/06/09 - A Visitor On Dungeness Spit

Dungeness Spit provides cheap day care for seal moms. It sounds like they are awful mothers. They drop their pups off on the spit and spend the day fishing. But, they come back in the evening to feed and take care of their little ones. We saw this little seal on the spit near the one mile mark, and he, or she, took all of us tourists in stride.

We should also note that the beach on Dungeness Spit is nice and sandy and good for hiking, even when the low tide is relatively high (around plus three feet). Needless to say, the views of the strait, the sky and the mountains are as spectacular as ever.

Cute

More cute

Even more cute

The view south

The view north

Keywords: dungeness spit

08/10/09 - To The Lighthouse

We didn't time the tides perfectly, but we made it out to the New Dungeness Light and couldn't help noticing the changes. The beach is much sandier than it has been, and that made for easier going. The sandbar out past the turn where the lighthouse becomes visible seems to have disappeared, but the big news is that it is once again possible to approach the lighthouse from the beach. For a while the beach had been so eroded that you had to cut inland and approach by the route they use for the beach buggies. It is nice to have the old approach back.

For a bit of history, you can click on the Dungeness Spit keyword.

The approach to the lighthouse

The lighthouse and its lawn

More beach

More sky

Orange fungus on the trail up to the bluffs

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides

07/28/09 - Dungeness Spit

It wasn't the lowest of low tides. In fact, it was about four feet above the reference mark, but the Dungeness Spit was surprisingly walkable. Sure, we were up near the driftwood barrier, but the sand was well packed, and there was enough of it so we didn't have to walk on those sea smoothed pebbles. There were also sea mammals on display, a seal and an otter. Both reacted promptly to the click, or perhaps the whirr, of our digital camera, so we have no pictures. You'll have to head out yourself and keep your eyes on the sea.

The beach at Dungeness Spit

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides

05/12/09 - Hazy Day On Dungeness Spit

There were some good tides at Dungeness Spit, so we decided to make the most of them. The day was sunny inland, but there was a sea haze out on the spit. There were also salamanders on the trail down. The beach itself was broad, but surprisingly rough going with lots of rocks and soft sand. We didn't get as far as we had hoped, but we did enjoy our visit.

If you want to explore the spit yourself, check the tides on our tide pages, or just follow the column to the left of this article. Down towards the bottom is a list of the next good tides at Dungeness, La Push and Cape Alava.

One salamander ...

The descent to the spit

... and another

The beach ...

... and just some of the rocks

Keywords: dungeness spit, salamander, tides

03/01/09 - Snow At Dungeness Spit

We were out at Dungeness Spit the other day and couldn't help notice that the beach was sandy. Usually, in the winter, the sand gets washed out, and we have to walk on piles of rocks and pebbles which can get tiring very quickly. There's lots of sand there now, and also some snow. The snow is only in some shaded areas, largely the shaded northern faces of the bluffs. We've got a more good hiking days for the spit on March 2nd, 3rd and 4th, then some more good tides around the 11th. Check the tide report on the bar to the left or our Dungeness tides page.

There is sand on the beach. That makes for easier hiking. It's about 4 1/2 miles from the base of the spit to the lighthouse.

The bluffs (and mountains) with some snow

The spit with some snow

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides, winter

10/27/08 - A Quick Trip Into Seattle

We made a quick trip into Seattle and flew Kenmore Air. It was a great flying day, and we had window seats, so here a couple of pictures from our flight, and one picture from Seattle proper. It seems that summer is over in the city as well.

Dungeness Spit

The Dungeness River - Can you see Dungeness Valley Creamery down there?

A city scene

Keywords: dungeness, dungeness spit, flying, seattle, autumn, kenmore

08/07/08 - Return To The Lighthouse

There have been some good tides at Dungeness Spit lately, so we wandered out to sea dryshod. The going was fairly easy, so we walked and walked, and before were knew it we were approaching the light house. The Dungeness Spit lighthouse hike is always a bit dreamy, but we were well rewarded with eagles, seals, gulls, terns and sea and sand.

Near the lighthouse we heard the gulls in an uproar. There was a cloud of hundreds flocking about. Then we saw the cause of this commotion. Two young bald eagles were being mobbed with gulls flying low over them and trying to force them from the sky. It wasn't exactly a concerted action, but it was effective. The young eagles were driven east.

Then the skies quieted. We walked onward to visit the lighthouse and pay a call on the seals who were not far off the spit near the lighthouse walkway. As we noted earlier, the Dungeness Spit lighthouse hike is always a bit dreamy.

Keywords: dungeness, dungeness spit, tides, eagle


Low tide, but the beach is rocky.

06/24/08 - Good Hiking Tides at Dungeness Spit

There have been some good hiking tides at Dungeness Spit lately. Yesterday, there was a -0.6 foot tide around one o'clock, so there was lots of beach to walk on. Check our tide tables, or our little notice on the left banner of this page, to find some other good tides in the near future. We have to be honest and report that the beach, while broad, was a bit rocky, with lots of small stones that kept us hopping. Still, we made it pretty far down, and we'll try for the lighthouse later this season.

Looking back at the mountains.

Dungeness Spit is more than just seagulls.

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides, birds, eagle

02/29/08 - Dungeness Spit Is For The Birds

We've been getting some good tides at Dungeness Spit, so we decided to do a bit of exploring. The tide was low and there was a lot of sand on the beach, so it was easy going. The view of the mountains was stupendous as you can see in the picture to the right.

There were two bald eagles, maybe a dozen yards apart, perched on the driftwood on the high ground of the spit. The older eagle took off shortly after we started taking pictures, but the young eagle stood his or her ground.

The mature eagle

The kid
The sea was full of ducks and duck like birds including mergansers, loons, eiders, and cormorants. They're a bit hard to photograph since they tend to dive when they hear your camera focus. Still, they're fun to watch.

We also ran into this little fellow on the right. We aren't sure whether this is pheasant season or not, but this guy was hiding out in the refuge.

Another kind of bird

Keywords: birds, dungeness, dungeness spit, tides, eagle


There isn't much beach, but what there is is choice.

11/26/07 - Dungeness Spit

There aren't any good high tides for hiking the Dungeness Spit until January, but the spit is still passable, even at fairly high tides (e.g. 8 feet or so). The going is rocky, with lots of rounded stones, and that makes it more tiring. Still, there is the strait, the islands and the sky, not to mention the wonderful mountain views.

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides


Winter skies, wintry beach

10/04/07 - Olympic Salamanders at Dungeness Spit

The winter season is here. There is snow in the mountains. Hurricane Ridge Road has already been closed for the season, though it may reopen. Low tides at the Dungeness Spit are rare and the sand is vanishing from the beach. The spit is still passable, but there are long rocky stretches, so we will have to plan our treks to the lighthouse carefully.

On the more positive side, we saw our first Olympic salamanders on the trail to the spit. There is a half mile trail through the forest from the parking lot to the descent to the spit proper. We've been taking it for years, but this was the first time we saw our familiar little friends from the Spruce Railroad Trail, Olympic salamanders. They really are that rusty orange, and they were obviously out enjoying the wet. We don't expect them to be out much longer with the colder weather coming, but it was neat seeing them skulking about.

One salamander

and then another

Keywords: animals, dungeness spit, salamander, kale


Cute little baby seal

08/01/07 - Dungeness Spit

We were out on Dungeness Spit today. Low tide was around 11:30, so we got an early start. We really didn't intend to walk all the way out to the New Dungeness Light, but the day was so bright, the air so clear and the water so blue that we just kept on going. Still, we didn't make up our minds until the three mile marker, with only a mile and a half to go.

Around the one mile point, we saw a large seal splashing about, breaching like a whale, and otherwise putting on a spectacular show, but the real charmer was the baby seal we saw on the beach on our way back. We also saw a bald eagle perched on a post, and the terns were having one of their raucous sabbaths.

There has been serious erosion out near the lighthouse. In the past, we have approached the lighthouse across the even beach, but today there is a long row of wooden pilings lining the beach, and a steep sand clip up to the lighthouse level. We assume that the posts were part of the ground work done to provide a stable area for building the lighthouse and setting up its grounds. It pays to explore. There is something new every time.

Perfectly parallel waves

The Dungeness palisade

Dungeness Spit scene

The lighthouse and the mountains

Keywords: animals, dungeness, dungeness spit, eagle

05/17/07 - Goslings on Dungeness Spit

This is the season for baby animals, and that includes ducklings and goslings. We were out at Dungeness Spit and nearly stumbled over this charming family scene. It was an hour or two after low tide, and there they were, right along the water, a family of goose, gander and goslings. They were resting on the sand when the waves came in, and they all scrambled.

Keywords: birds, dungeness spit, animals, dungeness

05/01/07 - Eagle Watching at Dungeness Spit

We took advantage of the morning low tide to explore the Dungeness Spit. It was a real low tide, with lots of beach, so we were able to walk out to the two mile marker and back mostly on nicely compacted sand.

In the winter, the tides tend to be high, so most hiking is done up at the high end of the beach near the piles of driftwood that collect there. In the warmer months, the tides tend to be lower, so we hike down towards the water, and driftwood is well up the beach.

That means that it's easy to get hypnotized by the sand and restless water, and not notice any eagles perching on the driftwood above. This time, we looked up, and there's a photo of the bald eagle we spotted on the left.

Keywords: birds, dungeness spit, dungeness, tides, winter, eagle

04/10/06 - New Tide Tables for Hikers

We've updated the tide tables for Cape Alava, La Push (Mora and Third Beach) and for the Dungeness Spit. We're trying out a new display format with less irrelevant cruft, and the good hiking days marked out in green.

 

Keywords: tides, cape alava, la push, dungeness spit, dungeness, third beach

03/05/06 - Dungeness Spit: It's Spring and the Low Tides Are Back

We were back at the Dungeness Spit recently and we saw something we haven't been seeing much this winter. The beach is back. Low tides are happening during the daylight hours again, and they are real low tides, not the little winter dips.

There are some good tides coming up on March 21st and 22nd, and then from April 1st to April 4th, which is especially nice since that includes the weekend. In fact, the weekends of the 1st, 15th and 29th of April are all good Dungeness Spit hiking days. For more, check out the tide tables or, if you are a Mac user, our Dungeness good tides iCal calendar.

Dungeness Spit at low tide

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides, software, dungeness, winter

Dungeness Spit - Winter High Tide

12/01/05 - Winter High Tide on the Dungeness Spit

Whenever we mention hiking the Dungeness Spit, we always mention checking the tides. The winter high tides can be a real problem since the sun, earth and moon are so aligned that low tides in daylight are often drowned out by the primary winter tidal components, and at best reveal little of the beach. While a summer low tide provides a broad stretch of sand for walking, the winter presents more obstacles.

The picture on the left was taken at the 1/2 mile stake that is the last point on the spit for jogging. We walked out, and we walked out carefully. There was not much beach, and what there was was covered with rocks, logs, kelp and gravel. It was not easy going, and we turned shortly after this picture was taken. Click on it for a better look at the obstacle course, though we have to admit, it is a pretty picture.

According to our tide calculations, we guess that the next good hiking will be in early February 2006, though the trail will be rocky. The sand gets washed out in the winter, so the trail will be rough going. As spring comes in, the sand returns, but it is still worth checking the tides.

Keywords: dungeness spit, winter, tides, dungeness, spring

Dungeness Spit Composite

10/23/05 - Coastal Panoramas from the Olympic Peninsula

We were browsing the web and came across the Washington State Department of Ecology's Shoreline Aerial Photos database, and we couldn't resist putting together a couple of composite images. The one linked to above is of the Dungeness Spit. The image above is just the image chip, click on it for the full 5910 x 448 image. The one linked to below is of Second Beach, the image is 3916 x 710. That California Coastal Records database gets all the attention, but the Washington State Coast has its charms as well.

Second Beach Composite

 For a bit more info on these composite pictures, you can see our coastal composite page.

 

Keywords: panoramas, beaches, dungeness, dungeness spit, second beach, washington state

06/01/05 - Tide Finder for Finding Good Tides

While there are many programs for producing tide tables, there do not seem to be any programs for finding a suitable tide. For example, if you want a low tide during the day for exploring Cape Alava or walking the Dungeness Spit, you have to wade through listings of high and low tides. Tide Finder program is based on FlaterCo's XTide 2.6 package, and provides a Mac OS X friendly user interface for specifying a tide search. You specify a tide reporting station, a range of dates, a desired range of times and the desired tides, high or low. It gives you a hit list, a calendar and a tide graph.

Keywords: software, tides, beaches, science, cape alava, dungeness spit, second beach, dungeness


Dungeness Lighthouse

08/09/04 - To The Lighthouse

Last week we took a walk on the Dungeness Spit which is an unusual sand formation jutting out from the North Olympic Peninsula into the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. It is basically a sandbar shaped by the prevailing current from the west meeting the silty flow of the Dungeness River. The hike is about five miles each way, from the parking lot to the lighthouse and back, 4.5 miles of which are along the sand bar. You often see seals, cormorants, loons, and other wildlife, along with the sea traffic along the strait. There are excellent views of the Olympic Mountains and Vancouver Island, and a great sense of isolation being both so close to short and so cut off from it and surrounded almost completely by water.
On a cloudy day, the driftwood forest and the sky seem to be the same color. We tend to try and walk close to the water, so we can smell the sea and watch for washed up kelp and shells. The footing is also better closer to the see, since the wet sand holds one's weight better, and sand is easier to walk on than the lumpy, polished rocks that are deposited by the tide. The less determined hikers drop out by the one mile marker, which is next to the remains of a beached dinghy perched with the driftwood well above the sea. The bluffs vanish behind one as the spit curves between mile posts two and three. Then come the sandy tide pools stranded by the sand bars. By mile four, you often find a pod of seals who seem to hang around out towards the lighthouse.

It rained on our last trip, but the real challenges are the rocks and sand. You can wear a raincoat and broad brimmed hat, but the trick is to find the right low tide. Since our last trip, we've put together a little driver for finding tides using the XTide program. It is a really dinky little program, and in retrospect it seems kind of obvious. You might want to check it out before your next littoral adventure.

Keywords: dungeness spit, trails, dungeness, tides

Newer Entries