If I were Homer, I’d write an epic poem about the 36 hours we spent on the Olympic Peninsula this week. It would include verses about mud, hard core children, lost shoes, smoky fires, oatmeal in-a-bag, and a buff husband. After that I’d inevitably switch genres and begin writing pages of sonnets about the gorgeous scenery. I could invent my own genre. Maybe the epiconnet? Or the sonnepic? Hmm. Well, I don’t want to make such a large literary faux-pas (this post may be too long to qualify as even an epic poem after all), so I guess I’ll stick with the standard blog format: pictures and stories. I’m still feeling lethargic from the whole trip anyways, so poetry—both the epic and sonnet varieties—seems rather out of my mental range at the moment.
It’s long so I broke it down into parts.
PART ONE: Prepping and Planning
[first view of the beach from the trail]
A few weeks ago, I spent a couple days immersed in my hiking guidebooks and planned the most perfect 4-day, 3-night camping extravaganza for our family on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. I typed up all the info into a schedule and printed it off. It was official. The Plan was beautiful. The week after Trek, we were GOING for it. As I feared, the 3 nights of camping on the handcart trek kind of burned off a lot of our pent-up camping energy so over the weekend we decided to reduce the trip to 2 nights instead. And then we ended up only camping one night. But it was intense—epic, even. The first stop on my list was Shi Shi Beach (pronounced Shy-Shy), a pristine wilderness beach on the Makah Indian reservation. Buckle your seatbelt, here we go.
[crammed in]
On Monday, July 2nd, we left my parents’ house 2 hours later than anticipated due to packing and gear-gathering challenges. For example, the outside handle of the left passenger door on our Civic got stuck in locked position, even though the lock was popped up. Then I accidentally slid down the child lock on the door so the blasted thing won’t open from the outside or the inside. It made for some creative maneuvers loading gear and kids into the car. Finally, at 10am, we started the 2.5 hour drive to the Wilderness Information Center in Port Angeles, WA where we had to get our wilderness camping permit and rent a bear can. It goes without saying that we had to stop for a potty break along the way. A nice man took pity on us and opened his roadside bar early so Rose could use the potty.
[bear can]
At last we had our permit and bear-proof food storage can, and it was on the road again for another 2 hours (this state is HUGE!) to Neah Bay, WA (think north westernmost tip of the Olympic peninsula), where we obtained a Makah Recreation pass which would give us access to the tribally-owned wilderness. The Makah Indians are opposed to speeds over 15 mph, so after another lengthy slo-o-ow drive through the green forest, we reached the Shi Shi Beach trailhead. Next we removed gear, husband, and kids from car. Then I drove the car half a mile back up the road to a private parking lot (overnight parking was not permitted at the trailhead). I jogged back to the trailhead. We used the vault potty there, hoisted up the packs, and FINALLY got-a-hiking.
PART TWO: Whites vs. MUD
So happy. So clean.
So ready to go. We had each kid carry one fleece blanket, a rain jacket, and one water bottle in their backpacks. They looked so stinkin’ cute trotting along with their animal-face packs.
Ok, the trail to Shi Shi beach was two miles long. We had been warned that it was “notoriously muddy” but the guidebook assured us that there were huge improvements thanks to a recently added boardwalk.
Well. That boardwalk was lumpy, bumpy, and old, and it only lasted about half of the trail. Then it was openly, insanely, goo-ily muddy. It got progressively muddier till we gave up trying to keep our shoes clean. We gave up trying to keep our feet dry when the mud got ankle deep. Eventually the mud reached mid-calf in many sections. Sucky squelchy water-pooling rich, black MUD. Every time Rose saw some mud, she said “major mud!” I lost count of how many times she said that during the hike.
Jeff and I were each carrying a 40+ pound hiking backpack, but we had to carry Jay and Rose through the worst of the mud too because they got mired down and slipped easily. The bear can kept falling off of Jeff’s backpack where he had strapped it on so he ended up having to carry it in one arm and help Jay with the other:
It all culminated in a particularly deep section that I was carrying Rose through when I got stuck, slowly squelch-wriggled one foot out, overbalanced, and sunk to my knees—mud up to my thighs. Rose got scared and started crying, and Jay lost a shoe, got coated, and started crying too. I can hardly believe I took pictures of that crisis. It was hilarious and exasperating all at once.
[my legs after the fall]
Jeff and I couldn’t set down our heavy packs anywhere due to the mud, so we had to do some quick thinking through all the crying kids. Jeff was all for traversing the 1.75 muddy miles back to the car and getting OUT of there, but we were so close, and the hike back would’ve taken another hour or more in the mud with the tired, emotionally-fried kids, and the parking lot was 2+ hours from any other possible lodging. So we forged onward. I took my pack and zoomed ahead to the campsite, dumped it, and slopped back to carry Rose in. We were all a bit frazzled, but the situation was so close to the borderline between hilarious and frustrating that we just kept kind of chuckling and trucking along. I told Jay stories to help get his mind off of his muddy feet. It worked, and by the time we reached the campsite, the kids were at least not crying anymore.
[the ferny slope/cliff down to the camping area]
When we got to the trail’s end, we had to shimmy down a nearly vertical, ferny cliff, clinging to ropes, to get to the campsite and beach below.
It was nearly 6pm by the time we got to the campsite. No time for a leisurely stroll on the beach. Jeff pitched the tent while I got a fire going. Then I took the kids to the ocean to wash off their muddy feet and legs.
PART THREE: The Pink Croc
After I washed Rose’s feet off in the cold waves, I sat her on a towel what looked like a good distance from the wet wave-washed sand. Then I took Jay up to the thundering waves to dip his feet in. He was half washed off when suddenly a bigger wave hissed forward onto the sand, dousing Jay up to his waist, wetting me up to the thighs (I needed it anyways), and rushing up to clean little Rose perched on her towel. I grabbed Jay and slow-mo-water-sprinted up to Rose, reaching her just as the wave did. She got soaked, and the wave made off with two pairs of kids croc shoes. I shouted to Jeff for assistance, led the kids to safety, and then sprinted after the shoes. The waves were dragging the crocs along the shore, and I managed to rescue 3 of the 4 shoes that were taken.
The 4th shoe was Rose’s other pink croc. It was nowhere to be found. It was the only pair of shoes she had—her other pair was 2.5 muddy miles away at the car. I told Jay and Rose that we needed to say a prayer to get Rose’s croc back, so we said one before dinner and before bed. Jeff stripped to his shorts and went splashing around in search of the lost croc. No luck. We went back, changed the kids into dry clothes, and roasted hot dogs and Ramen on our smoky damp fire.
Breakfast of champions: juice boxes, oatmeal, and smores:
[our makeshift ladle juicebox, used to scoop hot water into the oatmeal bags]
After breakfast, we had a game plan ready: Jeff would pack one backpack as heavy and full as he could, hike it back to the car, and then hike-slosh back to the beach (yes, 5 miles round trip), where he’d meet us and take the lighter pack and help Jay through the mud while I carried Rose in our kid carrier.
[Jeff at the top, Jay at the bottom]
While Jeff benevolently slogged through that mud, Jay, Rose, and I took a pleasant barefoot stroll along the scenic beach. We covered about a mile before Jeff caught up to us. We were all looking for the pink croc along the way, without success.
We sat on a big white driftwood log and had our lunch, watching the adventurous few hike across the 2 mile beach to the Point of the Arches. As one group passed us, I noticed something pink in a girl’s hand. I said “is that…?” and Jeff and I took off sprinting toward her jubilantly yelling “you found it!!!” I bet we looked like shipwreck survivors being rescued, bounding across the sand at her, but she was very nice. She said “it just looked ominous laying there, so I picked it up.” We thanked her profusely and went back to Jay and Rose gleefully holding the missing pink croc. It was amazing that neither Jeff nor I saw the croc as we walked along the beach, and it was even more amazing that the lady picked it up because there was plenty of other debris in the seaweed—I counted two other shoes along the way! It was so wonderful to have our prayers answered for such a small thing, in such an unexpected way. It added to the grandeur of the pristine Shi Shi beach.
The pink croc that spent the night being tossed a mile down the beach with the tide was bright and clean!
PART FOUR: Beach Walk
Here are some of the pictures we took while walking along Shi Shi Beach:
View to the north
View to the south—that line of rocks going out to sea is the Point of the Arches. Since it was two miles down the beach from our campsite, we didn’t make it all the way there.
We did get close enough for these full zoom pictures, though:
Someday maybe we’ll get to go back and explore these sweet sea stacks more closely. When the kids are old enough to slog through mud on their own, probably.
The pictures only give the smallest idea of what it was like there. They do not quite manage to convey the SWEEPING sky, the SWOOPING shore, and the SWISHING waves. I even watched a bald eagle soar across the entire beach through my binoculars. It was magnificent.
We stopped often to admire various beach-y treasures:
Strange holey rock
We found pieces of a crab and rebuilt it in the sand. That started them on a crab craze…
They would just stop and lay down and dig in the sand at random intervals throughout the walk.
Eventually we saw this wonderful sight—Daddy! Behind him a ways is the group of people who found Rose’s lost croc. I actually zoomed in on this picture and about halfway between Jeff’s head and the line of people behind him is a pink blob—it could be some seaweed or it could be The Croc!
The closest we got to the Point of the Arches. Our faces were all dark with the sun behind us, so I took a family shot from the other direction too:
Those rocks look like a sea monster’s spine
Adios, Shi Shi. You were worth the struggles.
PART FIVE: Back to the Car
We made it back through the mud much more quickly and easily than the day before, thanks to Jeff’s macho 5 mile gear-hauling morning trip.
I carried Rose, Jeff carried the last backpack, and we took turns carrying Jay through the mud holes.
First we had to scale the bank.
Rose fell asleep after about 10 minutes of walking. She dangled and flopped all over my back while I slurged through the mud.
It looks way easier than it was. They are heavy!
Load ‘em up again! Snack! Drive 2 hours back to Port Angeles to return our borrowed bear can!
PART SIX: Hurricane Ridge and a Canadian
By the time we reached Port Angeles, we were all feeling pretty DEAD DOG TIRED. Jeff wanted to drive back to the lake house right away. I still wanted to see some more pristine wilderness scenery. We were at an impasse. It was dinner time, so we got some Jack in the Box burgers to help us think. Jeff said the prayer for our dinner, and he asked for help to decide where to go. While we were eating at a picnic table in the Wilderness Info Center’s parking lot, we met Sophy.
Sophy was from Victoria, BC. She had taken the ferry over to Port Angeles and was trying to catch a ride up to Hurricane Ridge, (which was 17 miles UP into the rugged Olympic mountains from the Wilderness Info Center), so she could sketch the scenery. Our car, as you’ve seen, was full to bursting. Nobody else could take Sophy up to the ridge, so we decided to hide some of our STUFF in the ferns behind the info center and drive her on up. She was so nice and grateful for the lift. We were very glad for the answer to Jeff’s prayer for a compromise on our next move: after Hurricane Ridge, we’d drive to my parents’ lake house for the night. I got to see more scenery, and Jeff got to sleep in a bed afterwards. It was a compromise bonanza!
That speck to the right of the parking lot is Sophy, hiking away into the mountains to draw some scenery in her sketchbook. She was a very neat person—so free and independent! And she had an awesome Canadian accent, hey! It was fun to meet her. Anyways, we drove up to Hurricane Ridge, dropped off Sophy, and walked around enjoying the breathtaking views and sun-warmed pine-scented thin air. Then we retrieved our stuff from the ferns at the Wilderness Info Center, drove the 2.5+ hours to the lake house, and collapsed blissfully into a real bed. Of course we got lost along the way and had to stop and mooch a Starbucks wifi signal to download directions, since we are not smartphoners. But we finally made it there around midnight and believe me, that bed felt supreme. Now for the pictures of Hurricane Ridge:
It’s like the Alps of Austria. I couldn’t resist singing “the hills are aliiiiiiive with the sound of music!” while we were up there.
Snow! We had to cross it to get to the top of the viewpoint. It was cold in our sandals and crocs.
I’m in love with everything in this picture.
