Thursday June 22 & Friday June 23, 0.0mi/0.0km

I was awake at 5:30am, and boarded the 6:15 bus to Corvallis, where I waited for a different bus to take me to Portland.

That second bus arrived at 8am, and by 10:30 I was reunited with my car in Portland. I stopped for lunch, and then drove 4 hours to Washington’s Olympic Coast. Since I would be car camping with my friend Randi for the next couple of nights, I stopped to get some food and snacks.

I arrived at Kalaloch Campground around 4pm, and even though both of us had been hiking all week (she had just summited Mt Rainier!), we decided to go for a short hike on the beach.

Pretty soon we came to the Tree of Life, a famous Sitka Spruce with its roots hanging in the air.

You could easily hike underneath it, and go inside of the cave that the roots made.

We hiked a little further enjoying the foggy beach.

Back at the campsite we exploded our vehicles onto the picnic table and had a feast for dinner, even including a salad! Both of us have been craving greens and vegetables, given our recent diet of backpacking foods.

And it was really fun having a campfire, which I almost never do on long hikes since it’s a lot of effort.

After dinner and some evening beverages, we returned to the nearby beach to watch the moon set.

The next morning we left our campsite and drove North up the coast to ShiShi Beach. Along the way we stopped in Forks, WA. According to a local resident, their economy is based on three things – Timber, Tourism, and Twilight. We did some tourism and checked out the Bigfoot museum and store.

I really wanted this bigfoot shirt but they didn’t have any size small…bummer.

Then we went across the street to the Twilight museum, which was dedicated to the series of vampire movies from the 2010s.

The movie franchise was really popular, and the two volunteer staff at the museum seem to know every little detail about the 5-movie series. They had a pretty good collection of props and costumes used in the movies, ha!

And of course at the end, we got our picture in front of the screen.

After grabbing lunch in Forks, we drove the rest the way to the coast. The parking for ShiShi beach is on Makah tribal land, so we basically parked in some guys front yard for a small fee.

From the parking area it was an easy 3 mile hike to the beach.

I love hiking through the dense temperate rainforest.

It was so green!

An hour later we arrived on the beach and set up camp. View to the north:

View to the South:

View of beer:

I wouldn’t usually camp on a beach, but this was a pretty sweet spot!

We had a few hours before dinner time so we took a walk to a rocky cliff area to check it out. There were tons of seabirds looking for food on the rocks.

Back at the campsite, we ate dinner and Randi started a campfire. (I don’t have the skill or patience).

Just before we went to bed, a group of hikers arrived at like 10pm. It was confusing to see a large group of headlamps wandering the beach looking for a campsite at that hour.

I fell asleep to the sound of the waves, tomorrow I will have to wake up early to make the trek back to the Oregon Coast Trail. It was a great two days on the Olympic Coast!