Earlier in the week I decided that Sunday I was going to head out into the woods for two days, although I wasn’t too sure of which spot to visit. Eventually I decided on the stretch of the north Washington coast just south of Neah Bay called Shi-Shi Beach. I was poring over my topographic maps and saw that there was a couple lakes inland from the beach that I had never heard of and thought that it would be really neat to explore them.
My plan was to head out early, explore the beach, find a lake to check out, and then set up a quick camp and stay the night out in the woods somewhere. I wanted to get an early start, so I stayed the night at a friends house in Neah Bay and was at the trailhead before it was even light enough to see. As soon as I was able to see I took off up the trail towards the beach.
The trail starts out in a young cedar forest of tightly spaced trees no more than about 6 inches in diameter then quickly gives way to an open area which, after a couple hundred yards enters an older forest, whose trees are often covered in many different types of fungus. There is one stretch of the trail that the mushroom smell was so strong, I had to stop and marvel at the variety and abundance of mushrooms on the trees and ground. I’m not familiar with all the different species, but there are several I do know.Conks or Bracket Fungus were in great abundance. Conks are those large, fan shaped growths you see on dead or dying trees. They have a hard, brown top with “rings” or striations, and a fleshy white underside. Artists use these fungi to carve and paint and they are great for such purposes.
After about 3/4 mile, the trail joins up with an old road for the rest of the way to the beach. This stretch of road/trail is perpetually muddy. Every time I have been down here, no matter how long it’s been since the last rain, it has been extremely muddy. There are parts where it is necessary to go off trail to get around some mudholes. It’s possible to get there without getting muddy, but it requires some fancy footwork.
As I neared the National Park Boundary, (the parking area and 1st 2 miles of trail are outside the park), I glanced off the trail and saw a patch of chanterelle mushrooms. I LOVE chanterelles and was excited at the prospect of having some for lunch. I picked them, put them in a container in my pack and continued on.
As soon as you enter the park boundary, the trail leaves the old road and descends sharply to the beach. It’s about a tenth of a mile almost straight down to the bottom, but as soon as you reach the bottom, there’s several camping spots and the beach. The beach is a nice one; sandy, about 2 miles long with two small capes on its’ north and south ends. The northern rock formation has some really nice tide pools. The southern rocks, called The Point of the Arches, don’t really have that much room for tide pools, but are nice formations, nonetheless.
I immediately set off down the beach. The morning was still quite young and I was anxious to get to where I was going to end up, even though I still didn’t know where that was. The tide was high, so I was kind of forced to stay high up on the beach in what I call the scavenging zone. There’s that strip of beach up in the rocks and driftwood that collects all the flotsam. Along the coast here, you can find some pretty interesting things. Also, I was still in scavenge/survival mode from my weekend with Dave Canterbury. I was picking up bits of rope to use, every little bit of trash got examined for potential use. I was determined to gather as much useful stuff in order to make a sort of castaway camp. Today, though, there was one thing that blew every other bit of scavenge away: a crab ring.
Crab ring
This was quite a find for me. I was psyched. I figured I could have crab and mushrooms for dinner. I was in great shape. All I had to do was find a place to deploy it. I strapped it to my pack and continued on down the beach.
Before long I reached the Point of the Arches. By now the tide was at its’ highest. I unloaded my backpack and started picking around on the rocks. Suddenly, a large “sneaker wave” crashed up and soaked my pants and shoes. The water surrounded the rock I was on and I had to weather a couple more waves before it receded enough to make it back to dry land. I zipped off the detachable pant-legs and hung them on my backpack. I ditched the crab ring in the brush, out of sight in case I wanted to come back at low tide and see if there was a spot to toss it out. I was bummed that there wasn’t a good spot to use it.
By now it was around 10:00. I walked about a quarter mile back up the beach to a little campsite I saw on the way down, built a fire and hung my pants to dry. It was about this time I realized I forgot my machete. This was a bummer. Without it, I couldn’t cut an firewood. The driftwood in the vicinity was too large to use and there was no loose wood on the ground to use. There was no sustainable firewood source without having a chopping tool.
I decided to move inland. I scouted around for the trail to Willoughby Lake. My topo map said I was close, but I didn’t realize that this campsite was actually the start of the trail. Once I figured it out, I set off up the trail. This trail ended up being quite a little adventure.
It was pretty primitive and doesn’t get much use. About half way up I came across a blue huckleberry bush loaded with fruit. I paused to eat just about every berry on the bush. I ended up finding so many berries this day that I had to save some. I decided to save some to put in my oatmeal that I was going to have later.
Another thing I came across was a large pile of digested berries. Bear crap. About 5 separate piles. They were big too, and fresh. It actually kind of made me nervous. Oh well, I kept going. There are several large logs across the trail. A couple of these logs are 5 feet in diameter and there”s no way around them. There are foot-holds carved into to the side of them to assist you in getting over them, but even so, it tests your dexterity in scrambling over the slimy barriers.
Before long, the lake came into view. It’s a small, oblong lake, whose shoreline is completely encroached upon by the forest and brush. There is no shoreline to speak of. The bit of land touching the water is all boggy which makes it nearly impossible to get to the water itself. I found a downed tree poking out into the lake, so I walked out on it and noticed the lake water is black as any water I have ever seen. The branches in the water disappear from sight less than a foot down. There are, however fish jumping all over in the lake. Little ones, but fish nonetheless. I would imagine you could eventually catch enough to make a meal.
Disappointed by the lackluster lake, I abandoned my plan to stay the night up here and returned to the beach. As it normally happens, the return trip passes more quickly than the trip out, and before I knew it I was back on the beach.
By this time, I decided to abandon the idea of staying the night out here altogether. I moseyed on up the beach towards home, turning over rocks, checking on this and that, and even used some bull kelp to spell out a brief note to my wife, which I took a picture of and sent it to her. It made her day… or at least I’d like to think it did.
Before long, I was back at the trail, just 2 miles from the car and tackled the short, but insanely steep access to the old road that is the rest of the trail. By now my back was starting to feel the effects of lugging around my pack all day. It was only 5 miles to the furthest point I reached from the car, but the sand doesn’t help any. I stretched out and quickened my pace in order to get this last boring 2 miles done with as quickly as possible.
Before long, I was back at the car, my boots removed and my feet breathing comfortably in my sandals. The drive home was uneventful, and via my texting the family, I led them to believe I was still down at the beach. Needless to say, the wife jumped, half at being startled and half out of excitement to see me. The kids were excited as well.
The rest of the evening was spent cuddling and watching TV together. It was much nicer than camping out under a tree hoping the rain would hold off just one more day.
Pardon the lack of pictures, but the camera was at a wedding at this time and my camera takes horrendously terrible pics.
