Shi She Beach and the Point of Arches

I drove out to the Makah Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula to do two hikes today. The first was to Shi Shi Beach and the Point of Arches in Olympic National Park. This is a nice 8 mile round trip hike with 200 ft of loss down to the beach. I only saw one group of 3 backpackers and 2 other day hikers here today. The trail starts at a small parking area on the Makah Reservation and goes 1.7 miles to the boundary with Olympic National Park. It was raining when I started and the boardwalks were very slippery, and most of the rest of the trail was wet and muddy.

I saw some early wildflowers, lots of skunk cabbage in bloom,

yellow violets, and

salmonberry blossoms. 

Also saw some shelf fungus growing on the trees.

A view of the Pacific Ocean north of Shi Shi Beach, from a side trail along the way.

On entering Olympic National Park, the trail goes down 200 feet on trail and stairs down to the woods along the beach. View of the Pacific Ocean on one of the trails to the beach.

I first went over to the north end of Shi Shi Beach, it was raining and foggy, very moody.

As I walked south along the 2 mile stretch of beach, the low tide revealed some interesting rocks and tide pools.

zoom of the sea stacks north of Shi Shi Beach

I saw seagulls, oyster catchers and other sea birds along the shore this morning.

View towards the sea stacks in the Point of Arches on the south end of Shi Shi Beach.

As I was hiking the sun came out, the fog lifted and blue sky appeared.

The sea stacks in the Point of Arches reflecting in the water.

I arrived about 45 minutes before today's low tide of 0. This gave me time to walk out among the closer sea stacks in the Point of Arches and explore.

view from the other side of the first arch

view of the sea stacks to the south of Shi Shi Beach

A beautiful place to wander.

some of the sea stars and anemones I saw

On the way back up Shi Shi Beach, I saw these interesting large prints in the sand, probably deer.

There were several creeks to cross along Shi Shi Beach, this one was quite wide.

So nice to have blue sky as I returned to the north end of Shi Shi Beach.

zoom of the sea stacks north of Shi Shi Beach

 

Hurricane Hill Snowshoe

For our last hike this winter, we headed up to Hurricane Ridge at Olympic National Park to snowshoe out to Hurricane Hill and back about 6 miles round trip with 1,050 ft of overall gain. With some blue skies and a weather prediction of 20% snow after 3 PM, we hoped for some mountain views, but the snow started around 10 AM and we were mostly in the clouds. We were in fresh snow, a winter wonderland! Near the Visitor Center, we saw where someone had built a snow cave.

 Love seeing the trees covered in fresh snow.

The blue sky soon turned grey, the sun tried to break through the clouds

 

Many of the icicles were covered in frost.

With limited distant views, we enjoyed the views of the ridge heading up towards Hurricane Hill.

We started off breaking trail, except for two persons who were post holing in only boots. It wasn't long before others passed us and broke the trail for us!

We had occasional views of nearby ridges.

View of Hurricane Hill was covered in clouds.

Even without the views of the surrounding peaks, we loved the beauty of the fresh snow here.

As we headed up Hurricane Hill, most of the other snowshoer/hikers had turned around. It was windy and snowing with a limited view. By the time we caught up with last two snowshoers ahead of us, they decided to turn around. The group of skiers who passed us earlier were somewhere on Hurricane Hill, but we did not see them again until we came back down later.

Nearing the top of Hurricane Hill, we always had at least 100 yards of visibility. 

Our "views" from on top of Hurricane Hill today:

The way the snow freezes on these trees on top of Hurricane Hill is amazing.

Difficult to see this tree buried in frozen snow.

Our view heading down off of Hurricane Hill, back on the ridge we met a few snowshoers heading up to Hurricane Hill. 

A few times we saw the sun break through the clouds as it was snowing.

Lots of beautiful snow covered trees.

We kept back from the cornice side of the ridge.

As we neared the Visitor Center, we again had some blue sky!

Icicles hanging off the eave of the Visitor Center

One of the several deer we saw along the road going up to Hurricane Ridge