Magnificent, but so hard
Good morning fellow hikers.
All you get today is a trail report, but from a new location (at least for me). After venturing up the North Fork of the Skokomish on Monday, John & I headed far west on Tuesday morning to complete a goal we set last year before this whole COVID thing started.
We’ve had some truly amazing adventures together (Enchanted Valley, Rainier) and planned to add an overnight coastal trip to the memory book. Well, COVID delayed the trip until now.
We spent two days exploring the Shipwreck Coast from Rialto Beach northwards. The weather forecast was dicey: sunny on Tuesday but then fading to rain on Wednesday and then clear again today. But we had our permits so decided to give it a go!
We had both read trail reports on WTA and All Trails: the consensus seems to be that this hike has some of the finest, wildest coast in Washington but it guarded by a “trail” that mostly involves boulder hopping, waiting for tides to fall and trying not to slip on greasy rock. But heck! We’re Monday Hikers and those folks likely suffer from tender feet.
Nope. This adventure lives up to every superlative: we saw practically nobody, lots of wildlife (eagles, deer, sea lions, seals, otters and ravenous crows), were blown away by the beauty of the coast and ended up mentally & physically exhausted. Hiking (if you can call it that) here requires full attention. We were never on level ground, always thinking about balance.
Tuesday was our day of beauty. Made it to Chilean Memorial (site of a1920 shipwreck), set up camp, got a fire going and enjoyed the sunset. It started raining a bit overnight. Our plan was to hike to Norwegian Memorial on Wednesday, then out on Thursday. We set off early knowing the tide chart worked against us but hoping to find a bypass over Johnson Head.
Nope. Back to camp for a 2 hour wait. Then headed back to Johnson Head in a steady rain. As we rounded the point we were greeted by two things: the gnarliest stretch of weedy, rock flats yet and a pounding hail storm.
So we took this as an omen, reversed course, broke camp and headed home early. All in all a magnificent trip. We will take it easy today.
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