Beach Camping

I was very excited because we were doing beach camping for the first time!!!. We had done around 7-8 camping's last year which included camping in the forest and lake side camping and at that time we had wished to do a camping at sea shore.

We had been to Olympic National Forest last year and had spent some time at Second beach. We had seen some people camping there, so this time we decided to camp at the sea shore of Second Beach. There is no such thing called campsite in the beach, you can camp wherever there is place in the beach shore but make sure you are setting up your camp behind the drift woods since it is safe. Also you cannot reserve the place prior, its just a walk-in. You are lucky if you find an empty space behind the drift woods. But one important thing you have to do before going to the beach and setting up the camp is obtain permits in person at Wilderness Information Center in Port Angeles or at the South Shore Lake Quinault Ranger station. This permit will help to keep track of number of people camping  and also to locate us in case of any emergency.  

We had to drive nearly 500 miles to reach there, so we started around 6.30 in the morning. Since we were entering Olympic National Forest from south, the nearest Visitor Center was South Shore Lake Quinault Ranger station where we can get the permit for camping. We reached the Visitor Center at 10 am. The lady at the Visitor Center gave us the permit and along with that she also gave us bear cans to store the food and other items. She mentioned that not only the food items but all the items that we keep outside the tent should go inside the bear can because these things might not be attractive for us but for the animals it might be!. One more thing we got to know was, there was fire ban and we cannot put campfire in the sea shore but can only use gas stove. Just imagine, you are at the sea shore and its cold and windy; so in order to get some warmth you lit the campfire and sit beside it and enjoy the cool weather. Yes, its wonderful right!. But because of the high fire danger they had restricted the campfire. We were disappointed. Also there was no gas stove with us. We drove back to Aberdeen city to get the gas stove. This took extra one hour. After buying the stove we headed back towards the beach. In the mid we stopped at South Beach Campground for lunch.  The campground was decent with great view of Pacific Ocean; it was not exactly at the sea shore but slightly above the beach. One good thing was that we could park the car at the campsite where as in the Second beach we had to park the car at one place and walk for around 0.7 miles to the beach carrying our luggage. One of our friend was worried about this , so he was willing to camp here. After having lunch, as we were about to start he quickly jumped out of the car to check with the guard if there is any campsite available there. One site was free and he got booked that. We had planned for somewhere else and ended up here. 

It was 3 pm. The campsite was also reserved at South Beach Campground itself. There was nothing else to do, so we planned to go to 'Hole in the Wall' located within the Olympic National Park. It is a sea carved rock arch; a hole pierced by the waves on the huge monolith and is about 1.5 miles walk (one-way) along the Rialto Beach. 

Rialto beach

This trail is distinctive from all the other beach trails I have seen. Whitened drift woods along the course have naturally shaped into different forms which is really eye catching. The path alternates between the pebbles and the sand. 

Drift woods

Sitting back at the sea shore and watching the waves washing the rocks and sands and breaking on the shore is very relaxing and refreshing. I myself come from a coastal area and I like oceans very much. We could not go near the rock arch due to the high tide that made the area impassable.  It took about two hours for us to complete  the trail and return back. I wanted to see the sunset, but  alas the weather was foggy. So we drove back towards our campsite.

Hole in the Wall

It was 8 in the night when we reached our campsite. We quickly set our tent and campfire. It was cold outside; we sat near the campfire helping ourselves to get some warmth of the fire. We prepared coffee and then dinner using our gas stove. It was dark outside; no moonlight and we could not see even a single star shining in the sky because of the foggy weather. We started walking towards the ocean. It was so much dark outside that we could not see the ocean itself but could only hear the sound of the waves crashing into the sea shore. It was scary!. We returned back to our site, did some chit-chat and went to sleep. As we slept we could hear the waves roaring onto the sea shore.

Campsite and view of beach from the campsite

We were worn out because of the travel and sea shore hike, so next day morning we thought of going back to home directly. But we had one more thing to do. We had to return those bear cans at the Visitor Center. Yes, the same bear cans which we were supposed to use if we had done our camping at the Second beach. First, we drove towards the Visitor Center and returned those cans. We also told them that our plan had changed and that we did not camp at the Second Beach. Hearing this, the person at the Visitor Center gave us permission to use those permits any time within next one month. There was no proof to say that we had not done camping at the Second Beach, but still they trusted us. We were thankful that they believed us. Its really appreciative. 

The weather changed to sunny as soon as we exited the Olympic National park and there was lot of traffic on the way. Finally, we reached home in the late afternoon.

Waiting to do one more camping, hopefully at the sea shore and share the experience!.