After the fiasco at the food co-op, we drove the winding road down to Neah Bay. On the ocean most of the way. Reminded me of driving on the north shore of Oahu.
Got flipped off once along the way too. The van is slow and I get passed all the time. But in the year and a half that I’ve had the car, this is the first time I saw the bird. You can do with that what you will.
Neah Bay is the town all the way on the northwestern tip of the peninsula. The town itself is not doing great it doesn’t look like.
This area is a Native American reservation belonging to the Makah tribe. In order to stay in the area, you need to buy a recreation permit. Twenty dollars for the year isn’t so bad. But I doubt I will be coming back again. At least not anytime soon.
We found a campground south of town close to the beach and the location was great. Spent two days there. We could just walk onto the beach 500 feet away through a small forest. A good way to take a break mid-day and get some sun. Showers too.
We did two hikes in this area. The first was the Cape Flattery Hike, which is the most northwestern point in the lower 48 states. The walk is fairly short – maybe 3/4 of a mile. It’s pretty well-trafficked – a fair amount of people were there mid-week.
You don’t really get great views of the coastline until you’re about to the end. And when we got there this couple was getting married on the platform (what’s with all the engagements and weddings??) so it was quite a small place for everyone.
It was a nice view, especially of the island in the distance. But we took the walk late in the afternoon so the sun was in our faces the entire time. It was hard to see some things clearly with the lighting.
Shi Shi Beach was a longer hike (pronounced Shi Shi). About 2.5 miles through the forest until you got to the beach. Fairly flat there – until you get to the cliff you have to climb down.
Then you have a few miles to walk to the southern end of the beach. There were really cool rock formations here. But we didn’t make it down there in time. The walk was too long and we didn’t want to be rushing back. So we took in the views from a distance.
We had time to check out the tide pools on the northern end of the beach instead. Amanda was pretty stoked about this. Reminds her of home.
We would find better tide pools further down the coast but we still got to see some anemones which were pretty awesome. They are like aquatic venus fly traps. I had never seen any in person before.
We also got to see a purple starfish which was pretty cool. First official beach hike of the trip and got to see two very unique sea creatures. So overall a success.