On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
OTR posts are starting to come in. You guys are such good Balloon Juice citizens!
frosty
The National Park guide to Olympic talks about three parts of the park connected by water: the mountains and glaciers, the rivers through the rain forests, and the Pacific coast. They recommend that you should visit all three. We did! … without knowing that’s what we were doing. We went downstream to upstream, as it turned out.
The first two days were visits to the coast. We stopped at First Beach in La Push, then parked at a trail head and walked a 3/4 mile trail through a forest to Second Beach. Rialto Beach was our visit on the next day.
First Beach, at La Push
Sea stacks, First Beach
Trail to Second Beach. As we were walking back using our trekking poles a group of youngsters passed us on their way down and said “Props to you.” Unsaid was the word “geezers”. Just wait fifty years you bastids!
Hole in the Wall, Second Beach
The tide was out when we were there so a lot of the undersea life was exposed. These are mussels.
Snails? Miniature conchs?
Rialto Beach
Driftwood, Rialto Beach
Cobble on Rialto Beach. I was taken by the uniform oval shapes.
Bald Eagles, at an overlook on the road to Rialto Beach
Bill Hicks
Cool pics. I don’t know my molluscs, but it reminds me of a common periwinkle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_periwinkle
eclare
Great photos.
JeanneT
Many years ago I got to take a trip along this coast. My first beach stop was full of fog, roaring waves and a huge smell of ocean. The world is full of amazing places – thanks for sharing!
stinger
Hello, Nessie! (My initial reaction to the sea stacks photo.)
The smooth rocks are indicators that wind, water, and gravity are more powerful than any masked goons or evil sundowning administration.
A path through trees is magical to me, but all these photos are wonderful!
Betty
How refreshing that all looks!
beckya57
Glad you’re enjoying my beautiful state (smug)! I hike here regularly with the Mountaineers, a large western WA outdoors club. Most of the day hikers are 50+; lots of retired teachers and nurses in particular. So the trails here are full of geezers!
MCat
Thank you for sharing your trip with us. I can practically smell the ocean. That place is my idea of heaven.
Miss Bianca
Oh, man…I miss the ocean.
Bulgakov
We spent 5 days in the OP last April – not a drop of rain any day – how lucky is that? We found a VRBO on the beach of Juan de Fuca Straight, beautiful place. Closest town was Port Angeles which is a great spot for accessing the park and peninsula. Traveled from snow to shore in about 90 minutes. Since it was off-season there was very little traffic and very few visitors. Just a wonderful place to visit and soak up nature and scenery!
WaterGirl
@stinger: Yes, magical is the perfect word for that.
@frosty: I especially loved your commentary on that photo.
StringOnAStick
We love the PNW coast, WA and OR; definitely differences and similarities to both states. I need to go hike that trail, last time I was there I had an Achilles injury and uphill was not a good thing!