Never the Same at the Coast

At every National park, the Rangers talk about change. Largely, change on a geological or glacial scale, but on the coast it is literally different every day.

This photo was taken back in July. It was a quiet day on Rialto Beach features birds feeding in the surf and waves dropping from heights of just a couple of feet.

Take my daily patrols and programs on Rialto Beach. The texture of the beach is in flux from hour to hour and tide to tide. In the late afternoon, my feet will be sinking into small diameter cobbles or fine grain sand, turning my ankles and making me work for every step. The next morning I will be cruising on compact sand making double the time it took me the previous afternoon. Hundreds of tons of material moved every six and a half hours.

Sea foam, consisting of algae, plankton and gaseous mixtures (perhaps "emulsions" would be a good word) made the beach almost a winter scene on Friday.

There is also the surf. Without weather systems to excite the it, it generally stays unexcitable. Every now and then, a six foot surf will replace the normally 2 to 4 foot surf. Some days it seems, I have more energy than the Northeast Pacific.

Then there is the weather. It has been extraordinarily dry this summer by Olympic Coast standards, but I also discovered a line when to expect fog. When the temperature rises to about 78 inland, the fog rolls onshore. For a guy that hates heat, this summer has been heaven.

If you are looking for the small things, you are always rewarded at this beach.

On Friday September 11th, I arrived and found that one, the temperature on the beach was near 80 degrees. It was clear and crisp and the surf was a nutty 8 to 12 feet (wave heights) on the shore. A four foot tide line now became a seven foot tide line. High pressure in the Pacific Northwest and a deep low pressure center in the Gulf of Alaska caused a deep pressure gradient and heavy winds well off-shore. It was enough to make our corner of the ocean very active. There was no beach and backpackers were flocking to use the beach as their personal walk way into the North Coast Wilderness. I am quick to compliment our backpackers on their intelligence, but on this day, their common sense reached a limit.

Logs and driftwood up to 24 inches in diameter were being tossed about like Lincoln Logs and gathered speed up to 20 miles per hour. One lady suffered a fracture on Second Beach and had to be wheeled out on a liter.

I checked in with the area ranger that assured me that he had never observed these kinds of conditions during the summer.

"We have them all the time in the winter, but there are no people around".

As I traversed the route behind the driftwood to survey safety, I found a mom and dad heading out with a baby to camp overnight. I showed them the easiest route possible that included three locations where you out ran waves and then crossed Ellen Creek three times on a rather inconvenient mass of logs. Once in the backcountry I checked on all the packers and their locations relative to the surf.

The arch at Second Beach demonstrates the excitement of the surf even on Sunday after it had calmed down a bit.

On Sunday morning, the beach had returned from the wrath of the angry surf. It was not normal, but on its way. On the north end of the beach was a Stellar Sea Lion hauling out (resting). As I talked to a couple of guys that had discovered it as well. We debated its health and concluded that it was just exausted from facing the powerful currents and surf.

a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXlhYzAgtawqIjkyOhoUUtqQL5WlVwjy6UBqTuKNDb8jyV3VzlgF6L7fI1RK6cYgPbL1DMpJrRNo0AdFReUPLdwiLMP_m_2bKj18yLJcORm5I9mpL-POm_Q1sfAPi2BxXhUeUl-wG8eVb/s1600-h/Surfbirds+036.JPG">

"I wouldn't want to go back out there" quipped one of the visitors.

a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYyaWufEnMiz89A6EeglgY7DM2nwSYVqxlQjQQaY-3lehHY_xemW4lUZZGXVZVDo26snBVGHyxLG0yFYlh0KYa7dMSOXg881XuLs_zjDsOLpOrisUCs1z_yE4tE9xIZ-LhElXPjAsV71Zt/s1600-h/Surfbirds+043.JPG"> The sea lion studied the surf and decided better of it. She simply curled up next to a piece of driftwood to rest.

The potentially other unrelated problem that jumped out, was that Surf Scoters (Sea-Ducks) were coming ashore and presenting a sad show of nature's sometimes cruel reality. Something was making them sick and many were dying on the beach. Again, most visitors to a National Park take events like this in stride, remembering that human assistance here is unquestionably not allowed. I could tell in their eyes though that each visitor was wry in the back of their mind, hoping that this wasn't something humans had done to directly or indirectly effect the population of Scoters. Until we know more it just has to be taken at face value.

Surf Scoters, small sea-ducks gathered together on shore at 2nd beach on Sunday afternoon.

A male (left) and female (right) Surf Scoter.

The current explanation is that the ducks have been eating shellfish that had gathered a toxic algae bloom and weakened them to stressful levels. Tests are being conducted in a Wisconsin lab and should be available later this week. The true hope is that it is not at fault of humans and that it is something that is truly out of our hands.

Gulls picked at the remains of Scoters on Second Beach on Sunday.

When you talk of warmer waters and currents moving and causing life to live in places that it has never been, can you really rule out human influence?

Hiking the High Divide in the Olympics has its Rewards

The Seven Lakes Basin of Olympic National park is a very popular hike due to its beauty and procimity to roads. A 22 mile loop offers varied scenery for every pallet.

Just saying the words "Seven Lakes Basin" in the northwest is a significant spark in a conversation among hikers and backcountry enthusiasts. In the Olympic National Park Wilderness, it ranks as one of the most popular destinations. Part of its popularity has a lot to do with its proximity to the Sul Doc Campground, Resort and falls that draw a world-wide visitation. As we experienced, there is a constant line of day hikers that were headed to either Deer Lake or for the more hearty, Lunch Lake within the aforementioned basin.

The last few steps toward Heart Lake in Sol Duc Park were difficult on the hottest day of 2009.

The cool waters of Heart lake were a welcome sight.

Planning a trip to the basin can be complicated due to its popularity. Campsites in the area are available on a reservation basis and locations like Heart Lake are very difficult to obtain a site any day during the summer. You can call the Wilderness Information Center and reserve your backcountry site up to 30 days in advance, but until Olympic National Park becomes more in tune with actually happens on the ground, there is some flexibility. As someone who writes permits, I found that the crowded conditions on computer did not equal actual use in the backcountry. In what I thought would be a small city each night, turned out to be a total of about two dozen hikers over three days.

Mt. Appleton is the first of many ridges on the 22 mile scenic loop.

My hiking parter was my experienced but pint-sized 11 year old carrying a larger and larger pack each summer.

My other planning conunendrum included not working my 11 year old too hard on any given day. I wanted to keep him to less than six miles a day with a full pack. After I got off work in Forks on Tuesday evening at 4:00pm, we drove the hour to the end of Sol Duc Road, donned our packs and began the unknown (maps are very vague regarding specific distances to the ONP campsites) distance to our 4th campsite up the Sol Duc River. As it turns out, it was nearly five miles up stream which cut the journey the next day to only four miles.

The obligatory photo of an endless number of falls along the Sol Duc, Ridge Creek and later Canyon Creek.

Our first campsite was in the deep wood among magnificent Douglas firs and Western hemlock. It was also the first and only location where a campfire ( tough pill to swallow for an 11 year old but true backpackers understand why) was allowed. We roasted marshmellows after eating dinner in the near dark conditions of the deep-woods.

The first seven miles featured a dark, cool walk in the forest along the Sol Duc River.

I might also say that the next two days will probably go down as the hottest two days of 2009. As we climbed out of the woods into the more exposed meadows of the Olympic montane forest, the heat swallowed us. Our intake of water jumped to nearly a gallon a day each. The last of four miles was extremely tough for Jared as we appoarched Heart Lake and we arrived at our campsite at around 10am only to find it still occupied by the previous night's resident. A lady that was clearly in no hurry to move on.

While waiting for our new friend to depart our reserved campsite, we swam in Heart Lake and hiked "light pack" east on the Cat Basin Trail towards the Bailey Range.

We ended up seeing and visiting with her four additional times during the hike and week.

A grouse escorted her two chicks across a trail along Heart lake.

We spent the day trying to avoid both the bugs (largely black flies) and the heat. The latter was spent by swimming in the lake, but that did not relieve us from the bugs at all. The only true relief was total submergence in the lakes' pure waters. Unfortunately, one can not hide forever. As we visited with other hikers coming the couter-clockwise direction on the loop, they assured us that the "bugs" dissapeered at around 9:00pm. What they forgot to mention was the flies depart, only to leave the mosquitoes. Fortunately, the repellent we carried was actually affective on the latter pests.

The shape of Heart Lake gives it its name.

On Thursday morning we were strapping our packs together and had the first of three really cool wildlife encounters. Bending down, I caught a movement of white out of the corner of my right eye. Down the trail came a mountain goat with her youngster who follwed about 10 meters behind. They took a right on the spur trail right into our campsite. Jared and I yielded the the area and watched cautiously. At one point, the ewe took a couple of steps toward us and as if she were a bear, I yelled to indicate that my line on the ridge had been drawn. I got to thinking, what do you do in case a mountain goats attacks? There are entire books written on the subject with regard to bears and cougars, but goats have always been missing from the discussion! From behind, came more movement as a ram moved restlessly on the ridge above. In a few minutes, all three dissapeered into the canyon below and we were allowed to finish our packing in relative unease.

First Moma.....

The little one....it should be noted that Mountain Goats are not native to the Olympics. They were planted in the early part of the 20th century, but prior to that, glaciers in the Puget Sound area prevented them from arriving from the Cascades.

We departed for what became our most scenic day as well as the most difficult miles of hiking for my young partner. As it turns out, I made a very effective choice by taking the route up the Sol Duc first as it is much more of a gradual gain in elevation. From Heart Lake, there was a 300 foot climb to near the summit of High Divide, but after that point, the trail became a gentle, undulating route (with one glaring exception near Bogachiel Peak) until a steep drop above Deer Lake.

The Olympic Marmont is native and unique to the Olympic Peninsula. It is surprisingly large compared to the Marmonts of the neighboring Cascades. At first I tought I might have been looking at a coyote, fox and eventually a mountain lion.

At Deer Lake, we noticed that the top of the Bear Grass blooms had been chewed off. A deer demonstrated who and how as we folded up our camp on day three.

The views of Mt. Olympus and then the peaks and vallies of the Seven Lakes Basin were tremendous. Jared was especially taken by the Hoh River Valley nearly a mile below us. Unfortunately, a stop to enjoy the scene was tempered by the cloud of bugs that attacked the loitorer. My usual style pausing or even sitting for an extended period of time to enjoy a particularly joyful view was suspended. With this form of expedited travel, we were arriving at campsites much earlier than planned and our arrivial at Deer Lake in the early afternoon was no surprise.

Mt. Olympus could be viewed from nearly the entire route on the High Divide Trail.

Later in the day, we took a swim in the chilly waters and I reveled in the feel of mountain water on my tortured flesh. Better yet, the loss in elevation to a mere 3,500 feet dropped the population of flies to less than nightmarish.

Deer Lake could be seen in the distance, but it was much farther than it looked.

Deer Lake provided an excellent swimming pool in the mid-elevations of the Olympic Mountains.

Friday morning we slept leisurely and departed camp around 8:30am and arrived at the Sol Duc Trailhead at around 11:00am.

Lake Number 8 is one of many lakes in the Seven Lakes Basin and perhaps named with a touch of irony.

Overall, I count the loop as 22 miles even though I have yet to find any reports or maps that are consistent with each other. As advice to other hikers I would say hike clockwise. The trail is in amazing condition and my hat and respect goes out to the generations of Olympic National Park trail crews and enginieers that maintain this incredibly difficult route. On Thursday, we found a crew from the Washington Trails Assocition completeing work in the hot sun that parks service crews had marked as needs. There are several miles between Bogacheil Peak and the junction of the Seven Lakes Basin that could fall off the ridge at a natural whim.

The Upper Bogachiel River Valley of Olympic National Park is one area were the trail is hanging on to the side of a ridge and could be removed at the whim of any natural event.

In our haste, we were never able to visit the Seven Lakes Basin or any of the lakes therin. Thereby giving us the crack in which to plan another trip to the area.

Parting Shot....
Beargrass reflects in Heart Lake along the High Divide Loop in Olympic National Park.

Sunset/Sunrise

Some people wait for weeks to find scenes like this. This was the result of camping one night on Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park. In recent weeks with the heat inland and the contrast between cold and hot right at the surfline, fog has been the dominant feature on the coast. On this evening, the fog was retreated off shore just enough to supply personality and contrast.









In the morning, the sun broke through but the fog provided allowed the rays of light to take on a more solid appearance.

Earn Peace on the South Olympic Coast Wilderness

I am still but a baby when it comes to hiking along Northwest Washington's coastal wilderness. This isn't like hiking in the mountains where at worst, a trail washout may detour your hike and cause delays. On the coast, you intimimately interact with the subject of your worship. The ocean fascinates you, it forms the trail that you walk on and will stop you on a scheduled whim.

I have had two recent hikes on the south coast wilderness which begins south of the Quillayute River. The "north coast wilderness" begins on the other side of the river and continues north to the Makah Reservation near Cape Flattery.

The Giant's Graveyard bathes in beautiful evening light as Jared and I head south on 3rd Beach.

Just east of La Push, the hikes start at Third Beach. It is 1.6 miles to Third Beach itself and then a series of ladders with rope help take trekkers up the steep slopes to cross over Taylor Point. The small head creates a natural barrier to human movement as it juts out into the surf. The rugged trail spends a long mile in the coastal forest, out of sight of the ocean before dropping back to a quiet cove on the south side of the head.

The trail drops to a point just adjacent to a rocky point that requires less than a four-foot tide to pass. There is a rugged overland route, up and over a 20 foot cliff and the Park Service has installed a help rope on the south slope, but one may choose to wait, With secure footsteps and a jolt of adrealene, the passage may be made in the gentle surf as long as the hiker doesn't mind getting wet to the hips.

Passing Scott's Bluff requires a steep climb with a rope help. Jared works his way up the climb above the surf.

The route option is another challenge to less experienced and physical hikers. Scott's Bluff requires a three foot tide to pass, but this statement is important. The rope is your friend. "The rope" is about a 75 foot help up an often muddy 60% slope. Even in dry weather, small seeps turn the clay slopes into mush and make uphill traction problimatic. On Wednesday, my son and I chose to avoid the rope in a driving rain by bouldering around Scott's Bluff during the lowest tide of 2009. It took us about an hour to negotiate perhaps 150 meters over slippery, slimy rocks and boulders before returning to the beach. Several times during the scramble, we vocalized that a repel down the rope probably would have been the better economic choice.

Jared makes progress on the climb.

As a warning, however, there are only a handful of campsites at Scott Creek and all of them were full on Tuesday night when you would think visitation and backcountry use would be at its lowest. Scott's Creek is just the right distance for those that start their hike late in the day We did find a small site farther back in the woods, but it was not the optimal ocean view campsite by any stretch.

Rangers will tell you that hiking on the coast will take almost twice as long as on a regular trail. Two more points south of Scott's Bluff to Toleak Point require five-foot tides or less (which is more than about 60% of the 24 hour day) From Scott's Bluff to Toleak Point, the route is a quick hour at low tide. South of the Scott Creek area is StrawberryPoint and then Toleak Point that looks a lot like its northern counter-part Sand Point (near Cape Alava on the Lake Ozette Loop) geologically speaking.

A Harbor Seal looks for food in a large tide pool at Toleak Point.

At low tide, Toleak offers great tide pools that should be enjoyed. One of my tide pool visits featured a visit from a small harbor seal as hermit crabs curiously crawled to the toes of my boots. An eagle scoped the pools for opportunity from the 60 foot rock that is Toleak Point. Wide beaches attract novice and experienced hikers at the south coasts most popular destination.

An eagle scopes the shallow waters north of Toleak Point for an easy meal.

Getting to Toleak Point is an easy 6.2 mile coast hike that is largely easy, but has challenges for those without overall fitness. Standing on the beach at Strawberry Poit or Toleak and knowing that you are in total wilderness relaxes your entire persona. The farther you get from the Quillayute River, the easier the weight on your shoulders.

Off the Olympic Coast with NOAA

Along the Olympic Coast of Northwest Washington State, NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) and the ground presence of the National Park Service are inexorably connected. NOAA administers the 3,310 square mile Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary but has a minimal presence on the beaches where the National Park Service has multiple back and front country rangers on duty along the 73 miles of wilderness coast between the Quinault and Makah Nations. Park Service personnel are trained to respond to sea mammal standings as well as other reporting and education procedures.

NOAA's science craft Tatoosh often plays host to scientists and wildlife survey teams. It played host to eight coastal Park Rangers and educators for a few hours in late June.

It is this relationship that is the impetus behind NOAA hosting a group of Park Rangers for an off-shore tour this last week. The rangers and one local teacher met at NOAA’s science boat Tatoosh that is based out of La Push, Washington.

The tour began on the south side of James Island through the narrow mouth of the Quillayute River into the open ocean were conditions were akin to a lake. The only complaint was that there was an abundance of high thin clutter clouds that amounted to a slightly less than powder blue-sky day. As we rounded James Island and headed north, Mt. Olympus towered over the Olympic Peninsula towards the southeast.

Cake Island is just a few miles off shore from famous Rialto Beach at Olympic National Park.

First stop on our excursion was Cake Island which serves as a major rookery for a number of seabirds. Chief among them are Puffins and Common Murre, but also include Cormorants and Western Gulls. As we arrived, a Bald Eagle was raiding the colony and chaos was the rule of the moment. While the island is set aside as a place for the birds to call their own, peace and quiet was not to be had as the gulls raided and the Murres took flight, momentarily leaving their eggs behind and in peril.

Murres and Puffins among other species litter the water around Cake Island.

Common Murre

Puffin

Next was a pair of islands to the north aptly called Sea Lion Rock and then Carroll Island. Sea Lion Rock is a low lying, surf beaten stone that has a high point just 50-75 feet above the sea and is the reign of sea lions. A few hundred yards to the north at Carroll Island, Sea Lions and bird life were abundant on the low lying shores that led to the steep cliffs several hundred feet above. In three locations, the ocean cut large caves including one that chopped through the entire island from west to east. From within the caves came the unmistakable social communication of California and Stellar Sea Lions.

Two California Sea Lions greeted us as we approached Sea Lion Rock.

Carroll Island has several caves where Sea Lions find solitude from the pounding surf of the Northern Pacific.

At one point during the tour, our captain shut off the boat’s motor on the northern side of the island and allowed the craft to drift silently first east and then south as we silently listened to and watched the private dramas that were taking place on shore.

Cormorants dominante the landscape adjacent to Carroll Island.

The northwest side of Carroll Island had this population of Stellar and California Sea Lions. The island is used generally as a retreat for males after the breeding season, but on this day, females and pups were also spotted and stirred a scientific inquiry thaty may have to be updated.

The tour was derailed as we began to head north for potentially 30 minutes take a close look at Ozette Island off the western most point of Washington State near Cape Alava. In transit, our captain came over the speaker and said that a whale had been sighted. Sure enough, a Humpback was fishing a current and the boat captain began playing a game of hide and seek with the massive fisher. Based on experience and guesswork, our guide would move the boat to a spot where the whale would probably surface and then turn off the engine.

The tail of a Humpback whale is usually a signal that the whale is going into a dive that will last for five to seven minutes. Wait patiently, he will most likely return to the surface is the same general area.

Time after time, this strategy was rewarded with the preceding “blow” and then surfacing of the whale. While we never witnessed a full breech (the whale jumping completely out of the water), the estimated 55 foot whale consistently provided us with many sightings.

The most we saw of a humpback whale that we kept company off of the Olympic Coast on a Tuesday in late June.

After the trip, I thought about my limited role as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service and how it relates to NOAA and the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. I now have more of an affliction to the wildlife that lies just off the beaches where I educate visitors and patrol on a daily basis. The partnership is now in sharp focus.