Olympic National Park - Lake Quinault

August 21, Wednesday

 

The beach at Rialto was awesome.  We walked 1.5 miles down the beach to the Sea Stacks (rocks that are formed by the wind/waves).  The beach was quite rocky with black sand and the waves crashed in (not a swimming beach).  On the rocks, we saw Sea Anemones and numerous Starfish.  We didn’t quite plan to be hiking another 3 miles that evening, so when we got back to the hotel we crashed.  By the way, Rialto does not allow Vampires to their town…. 

 

Wednesday morning we headed out for Lake Quinault.  As we traveled, we stopped along the way at Ruby Beach.  The Washington coastline is rugged with downed trees lining the beaches and waves crashing in on the rocky shores.  We arrived at Lake Quinault around 1PM, so we decided to take the 30 minute loop around the lake.  We stopped to see the Largest Western Red Cedar (63.5’ circumference/174’ tall) and also the Larges Sitka Spruce (55’7” circumference, 191’ tall).  We checked into our Lakeside Suite and it was recently renovated and beautiful (overlooking the beautiful Lake Quinault).   In the afternoon, we hiked to see the Cascade falls.  Then time for relaxing in our adirondack chairs on the resort grounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 22, Thursday

Time to head home - 3 hour drive to the airport.  Along the way we collected pictures of the small drive-up coffee shops that we saw quite frequently throughout our trip.