Parasol weather on Second Beach: bright sun, endlessly retreating tide. Before I even had my hiking boots put away and water shoes on, I heard an oyster-catcher, and he kept on calling. There he was: the clown, the goofy shore-bird who looks like a cartoon.
At lowest tide
many people ambled over to look at Crying Lady Rock from what seemed to be the shallowest point, to see whether they could make it over to the island. Some years you can actually walk right over to it on the big minus tides of summer. (1). So enticing: caves, tide pools, and if you could just get over there you could by golly walk right around it with the tide this low. Only two boys actually got across the channel. Myself, not having anyone to leave my daypack with (and not knowing how deep it was going to be) I turned back when the water was up to my thighs and I could feel the current pushing. Later I saw the boys on the trail. They said the water had been chest deep in the channel, and the island's tidepools were very cool: crabs, seastars, anemones, a sea cucumber.
I didn't stay long, it was relentlessly bright and after I'd somehow gotten sunscreen in my eyes I could barely open them against the glare. Retreated back up the trail into the shady forest.
The Park advocacy group Olympic Park Associates worries, by the way, that the south parcel of land which the Park is handing over to the Quileutes lies immediately above Second Beach, and that the tribe's development of this parcel may create light, noise, and visual impacts for the Park's wilderness users at Second Beach.
Reminder map:
4 comments:
FYI - the two panorama shots are blocked from viewing. At least on this computer.
They're youtube videos, and they're working here at work (ie, not just on my home machine).
They work now. But I'm at a different computer too.
I don't know that I have any control over a youtube posting that only works on some machines.
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