Neah Bay to Forks was about an hour and a half drive. Had to go back to Clallam Bay to get there. Didn’t stop in the food co-op, needless to say.
Forks is a bit more run down than I thought it would be. A pretty consistent theme on the Olympic Peninsula. You think where there is a national park you would have some level of amenity. Especially one as well known as Olympic.
Fun fact though. They filmed some of the scenes from Twilight here. The teenage vampire book series turned film. And they definitely embrace their claim to fame. Merchandise and little gift shops everywhere. One supermarket and about five of these shops completely dedicated to Twilight paraphernalia. Go figure.
We were here to visit Rialto Beach, which is one of the many beaches that make up this stretch of coastline. Probably the most well-known though. Here you can find the Hole In The Wall. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a hole in the wall of one of the larger rock features on the beach.
We stayed in the campsite right by the beach and it worked out really well for us, outside of arriving to find someone camped out at the site we had reserved. I spoke with the ranger and they said they couldn’t do anything about it. They weren’t allowed to move someone’s belongings.
So she gave us a new site and it worked out rather well for us. It was a better site than the one we had reserved. Further away from the construction they were doing near the river.
In order to get to the Hole In The Wall, you walk about a mile down the beach. Just like most beaches out here, it is littered with the remains of hundreds of gigantic trees. It’s a national park so there were a handful of people around.
You get to the Hole In The Wall and you have a bunch of people trying to get the perfect picture. I have mixed feelings about it. I want to get a good picture as well but there is a line you need to stay on the right side of. If you’re taking several minutes and taking several pictures then you might be ruining the experience for others.
The low tide was in the late afternoon for the entire time that we spent in this area and that worked out really well. Amanda could get her work done and then we could get over to the beach at about 3 or 4 o’clock so we could check out the tide pools.
The next day we went to La Push, a small town just south of Rialto Beach. It’s part of the Quileute Native American reservation. There are three separate beaches located in the town that have similar rock features to Rialto Beach. But unlike the Makah reservation in Neah Bay, no recreation fee was required.
So we hiked to Second Beach the following day and the rock formations here were probably my favorite of all the beaches we have been to on the trip. The tide pools here were also very good and we saw the biggest starfish we have seen thus far. Amanda was still looking for a sea urchin (it was her last chance) but we never found one, unfortunately.
While on the beach it began to rain fairly hard. So we definitely got the Pacific Northwest beach experience. We were soaked but we didn’t rush off the beach. It’s fun to get caught in the rain sometimes.