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 | Stunning Point of Arches, the Washington coast's most magnificent headland, forms the southern boundary of Shi Shi Beach. Scott Egbert of Plain, Chelan County, traverses the sandstone shoreline. Dan DeLong / P-I |
Spectacular Shi Shi Beach a jewel in the peninsula's rugged crown
By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
SHI SHI BEACH, Olympic National Park -- A good gauge of how much you enjoy a particular outdoor paradise is how much you hate to leave.
I've had to drag myself away when it was time to head home after the five backpacking trips I've made to Olympic National Park's wild ocean coast. And the most recent, to renowned Shi Shi Beach, was the most brutal to walk away from.
At 57 miles, the park's wilderness beach strip is one of the longest undeveloped ocean shorelines in the lower 48 states, and one of the most special places in the universe.
The combination of sights, sounds and smells creates a magical ambience. The repetitive rumble of surf rolling over sand and stones is mesmerizing; the briny smell of the blue-gray ocean is primal and poignant; wind-twisted Sitka spruce forests line the bluffs. Oddly shaped sea stacks project from headlands, resembling some prehistoric scene, like a line of gray dinosaurs marching into the ocean.
Raccoons, river and sea otters and eagles are common sights, and colorful tide-pool creatures are revealed whenever the tide is low. Gray whales can be spotted spouting offshore in spring and fall. Deer, elk, bears and even cougars are there, though seen infrequently.
You sense that it's all been that way for a long, long time. You wonder what the Greek seaman Juan de Fuca must have thought when he sailed by here 408 years ago looking for the Northwest Passage.
"It's great, great country," says Jan Klippert, an avid hiker from Seattle who organized a cleanup of the park's wilderness beaches in April. "It's really unique in the whole continental United States, with the sea stacks, the heavy surf and the ocean that changes so much. The vistas are so great. It's a huge horizon."
At the same time, hiking this rugged coast is no stroll on the beach. It is a place that can stun you with its beauty one moment and hurt you the next.
Impassable headlands force muddy inland traverses; some must be climbed with ropes or ranger-built "sand-ladders" of ropes and timbers. Incoming tides can trap hikers who don't plan by the tide book. A heavy surf on a high tide will get up into the driftwood and fling 2-ton logs around like a rutting bull elk raking tree limbs with its antlers.
The footing can alternate between loose sand and slippery seaweed-covered tidal boulders.
"We've had several deaths associated with people trying to get around headlands and falling," says Mark O'Neill, National Park Service district ranger at Mora, near La Push. "The rock along this coast is that sandstone/clay, really crappy rock. We get a few knee and ankle injuries."
One constant on the beach strip is change. Tides roll in and out twice daily. One evening the sun can sink below the western sky big and orange, and the next be blotted out by overcast. Bluffs above the beach slide and slough periodically, pummeled by regular heavy rain and howling winds.
"That ocean can change so much," Klippert says. "One day it's calm and smooth and the next day it's a pounding surf."
Weather can be vicious, but in all my backpacking trips to these shores -- all in February, April or May -- I've experienced no subfreezing temperatures, no rain heavier than a shower and on the past two trips skies have been blue and temperatures warm.
Shi Shi is the northernmost beach of the park's coastal strip. It is a two-mile, crescent-shaped strip of sand bounded on the north by the Makah Indian Reservation and on the south by stunning Point of Arches, the most magnificent headland on the coast, dotted by sea stacks, jagged rocks and fascinating arches.
Shi Shi, added to the park officially in 1988, has something of an infamous history. In the '60s and early '70s it was the home to an ever-changing band of free spirits who constructed all manner of colorful cabins from driftwood and flotsam. Today the squatters are gone and the land again looks as it did hundreds of years before. At least during off-season weekdays.
It is a very popular beach that is jammed on summer weekends and approached two ways: the difficult official south route and the unofficial route via the reservation on the north. The Makah tribe has closed the northern approach along a muddy old logging road because of private property and liability concerns, but does not enforce the closure.
Landowners near the gated road allow hikers to park overnight on their property for a small fee, and this is advisable since cars left at the gate have been vandalized. No doubt this arrangement generates needed income for the families who live there, including a tribal elder nearing 100.
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| At Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Coast, a sunset is the reward for hikers who choose to overnight. The long, sandy strip with sea stacks offshore draws backpackers and day hikers. Dan DeLong / P-I |
The southern route to Shi Shi requires a crossing of the Ozette River, which often is not possible during periods of heavy rain, and then a tough 13-mile hike along the beach and over or around several headlands.
On our late-April weekday trip, temperatures broke the 70-degree mark and we had the beach mostly to ourselves. Beachcombing was good, with a curious assortment of flotsam washed up. We even found a softball-size, smoky-green glass fishing float -- the beachcomber's most-sought-after treasure.
Shi Shi is wonderful, but just one of many gorgeous beaches in the park.
Most hikers split the strip into three portions: Ozette to Shi Shi in the north (about 13.7 miles), Rialto Beach to Ozette in the middle (20 miles) and Hoh River to Third Beach near La Push (17 miles) in the south.
All three are superb hikes.
But my favorite stretch is from Hoh River to Third Beach. It is one of the most rugged stretches, particularly around Hoh Head, which must be climbed.
It offers an excellent combination of sea stacks and islands, long sandy beaches, pocket beaches that can be explored only during minus tides, long inland traverses through the forest, stream-crossings and a pretty waterfall.
The least-traveled stretch is from the Ozette River north to Point of the Arches, because the river can be tough to cross and there are several difficult headlands south of the point.
The most popular part of the beach strip is from Cape Alava south to Yellow Banks, a long sandy beach marked by large spruce-studded islands. It is an easy hike via boardwalk from the Ozette ranger station. (The boardwalk can be very slippery when wet, especially for those in lug-sole boots)
It is so popular that the number of overnight campers is limited there from May 1 through September. You must reserve a permit from the park's Wilderness Information Center.
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| Scott Egbert of Plain, Chelan County, walks south on Shi Shi Beach toward Point of Arches on the Olympic Coast of Washington. Dan DeLong / P-I |
The critters live all along the coast, but they are a big problem only in the Cape Alava region, where they have grown accustomed to human food and are capable of unzipping packs and tents, climbing trees and ropes to get at hanging food, and now, prying open bucket lids.
The marauders are so bold they've been known to hiss and growl at hikers who try to shoo them away.
For a few years, park regulations required that overnight hikers in that area hang their food from specially strung wires at campsites. But the raccoons figured that out. Then a couple of years ago the park began requiring that hikers store their food in commercially available "bear canisters," 5-gallon buckets with snap-down lids or any locking hard-sided container.
"It seems like every time we do something at Sand Point, the raccoons overcome it," O'Neill says. "They're now able to jimmy open those snap-down lids. This year we're encouraging people to tie down or tape the lids."
The requirement that food be stored in canisters or buckets now applies to the entire wilderness beach strip.
"We don't want the problem to spread," O'Neill says.
Wildlife is abundant on all the beaches, but it doesn't appear that raccoons or other creatures pose any problems outside the Sand Point/Cape Alava area. On all the trips I've taken, we've hung our food and had no trouble.
In the morning after our first night at Shi Shi, tracks of raccoons and river otters were scattered all over the beach, but never near camp. Curious, that evening after dark, I turned on my flashlight and swept it along the edge of the surf. Sure enough, the beam picked up a pair of glowing eyes that vanished up the beach after a few seconds.
Another problem park officials fear might spread is the sheer number of people.
O'Neill says quotas probably will be used in the future for the entire wilderness beach strip, and not only May through September.
Although you can usually find yourself alone on the wilderness beaches any weekday from late September through May, off-season hiking is increasingly popular.
And some hikers enjoy it in the dead of winter.
"They want that hellacious weather experience," O'Neill says. "They like experiencing the force of nature, that barrage of rain and wind."
Beach hiking tips
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