A forecast of sunshine for the weekend meant a trip to the coast! We try to make it to the beach about once per year. It's a great place to go when the mountains are still covered in snow. We were originally planning a slightly longer hike, but after a night of car camping near forks, I woke up with a weird shoulder pain and decided not to push it. Instead we opted for a shorter trip from Rialto up to Hole-in-the-wall and onto Chilean Memorial.
We left fairly early in the morning and headed out into glorious sunshine. We had some nice low tides exposing lots of rocky beaches and tide pools. We took our time exploring as we went. We were hoping to find a nice secluded beach with good camping. At Chilean Memorial we found just that. There was a great campsite just a little ways up the bluff very near the actual memorial. We had the beach to ourselves...well almost. One solo backpacker came in just before dark, but he was pretty quiet.
We made a yummy dinner and then had a campfire out on the sand. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the waves, exploring around the beach and just relaxing. It was a warm evening which allowed for lots of star gazing. Coast camping moves at a slower speed than most of our backpacking trip. The next morning we packed up and headed back out. Stopping for several photo ops along the way. Great trip!
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| Crashing waves on a rocky beach |
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| Coming up to hole-in-the-wall |
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| Black Oyster Catchers |
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| Hole in the Wall |
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| Beach Panorama |
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| Star fish |
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| Anenomes |
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| lots of sea stacks |
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| Watch out for that wave! |
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| The view from our campsite |
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| Making a fire |
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| Our camp |
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| Back to hole-in-the-wall |
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| Through the hole! |
