Good Bye Long Beach Peninsula, You've Been Wonderful!

Today we leave Long Beach Peninsula and the state of Washington behind. Western Washington has been a perfect place to spend the summer with its cool temperatures, a diversity of terrain and charming small towns we've had no shortage of great hikes and interesting exploring to do.

From the moment we arrived the Long Beach Peninsula charmed us with its laid back and friendly beach vibe. I've already posted about the first part of our week here, now I'll share how we spent the rest of the week.

I first mentioned the Discovery Trail in my last post; a couple of days later we rode our bikes from our site at Cranberry RV Park to the North end of the trail, two miles away, and proceeded all the way to the Beards Hollow trail head at Cape Disappointment another six and a half miles (Discovery Trail map). This portion of the Discovery Trail is the easiest, winding through the grass covered dunes, the elevation change is minimal. Beyond Beards Hollow you can drop another couple of miles into the town of Ilwaco or climb a bit into Cape Disappointment State Park. This a beautiful, peaceful trail and I would enjoy riding or walking this again and again.

Sculpture of Capt. William Clark and the 10 foot long sturgeon he found on the beach.

Cape Disappointment rises from the low dunes behind Hans on this cloudy day.

Once the Labor Day weekend crowds subsided we drove into the small town of Long Beach. Long Beach is the most kitschy, touristy beach town on the Peninsula, with lots of hotels, restaurants, arcades, sweets shops and amusements geared towards families. One of the most unique stores is Marsh's Free Museum, a large shop filled with funky antiques and taxidermy plus modern tourist junk for sale.

To get to town we drove the beach highway!

Unfortunately the tide was coming up and not all of the hard packed beach was as wide as in the previous photo!
We scared up a flock of seagulls as we kept to the water line!

Mural depicting 1920 cranberry harvest in downtown Long Beach.

We took a day trip into Astoria, OR. This lively port town has several miles of waterfront walking, a bustling downtown with unique shops and restaurants and lots of wonderful turn of the century homes perched on the steep hills overlooking downtown. It put us in mind of a mini San Francisco or Portland.

The Oregon end of the Astoria - Megler Bridge.
The covered portion is being painted and caused some traffic back ups as traffic was down to one lane.
Old pier pilings abound on the Astoria waterfront.

Several large ships were anchored on the Columbia River waiting their turn to dock.
Along with the old pilings, there were several abandoned structures as well.

Heron on pallets.

Yarn art in downtown Astoria.

Towering above the city is the Astoria Column, a 125 foot tall column built in 1926. It's open to the public and you can climb the 164 step spiral staircase to a marvelous view.

Sorry this is a little crooked, but it's the lightest shot I had that showed the wonderful paintings that cover the tower!
The clouds were building quickly during our visit.

From the tower you get a spectacular view of Astoria and the full span of the 4.1 mile long Astoria - Megler Bridge
connecting Oregon and Washington.

This zoom shot shows some sandbars in the ever changing Columbia River near the bridge.
The black specks to the left of the visible sandbar are birds perched on another sandbar.

We visited Cape Disappointment State Park one day where we hiked a few trails, viewed both lighthouses and visited the very well done Lewis and Clark Interpretive center in the park. Note: trails throughout the park do not link up well, it is easier to drive to each trail head and do each trail individually.

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is $5/per person (in addition to the Washington State Park entry fee) and contains an extensive historical timeline of Lewis and Clark's journey from St Louis to the Pacific Ocean including a short movie. There is also a bit of information on the lighthouses and the many shipwrecks that have happened in these treacherous waters. This was one of the better museums we have visited lately and well worth the entry fee.

North Head Lighthouse warns ships on the ocean side of Cape Disappointment.

We saw a couple of bald eagles.

The Cape Disappointment lighthouse warns ships navigating the treacherous mouth of the Columbia River.

We enjoyed a really lazy last day, driving to a beach North of us and having lunch at the edge of the dunes with a warm summer breeze waving the dune grasses and shifting sand particles across our toes.

Nothing but wide open beach...

With occasional passers by.

Our last evening we made some new friends whom we met on RVillage, John and Karen are full time RVers that summer in a park in Ilwaco, WA. We'd noticed during our drives around the peninsula that the area is extremely friendly to RVers and many folks buy lots and set up their rigs for the summer. After spending one week here, it is easy to see why people love it so much! We had a delicious dinner at John and Karen's getting to know them and with any luck our paths will cross again somewhere, sometime!

So I failed to get a picture of us with John and Karen, but I got one of me with their adorable little PJ,
short for Pepper Jack!

We spent our week on the peninsula at Cranberry RV Park, a small, full hookup, adults only park about two miles North of the town of Long Beach. Our site (#6) was difficult to get in to, but once we were parked we enjoyed a peaceful stay. On clear nights we could even hear the ocean about a quarter mile away. The sites are pretty close together but not as bad as some of the other RV parks we looked at in the area. This is a very friendly place to stay and is extremely dog friendly, the owners two standard poodles follow her around constantly (off leash). There is a Verizon cell tower about one block away so we enjoyed a blazing fast 4G signal!

We loved our time on the peninsula and we will definitely return. We'd probably look for another RV park since our rig was kind of large to get into the sites at Cranberry, though we really appreciated the low-key, helpful, friendliness at this RV park. Along with Cape Disappointment State Park, there are numerous other small RV parks on the peninsula to choose from.

Today we head into Oregon and make our way down the coast for a couple of weeks. September is looking like the perfect time to hit the beach, the crowds have dispersed and the weather is beautiful!

Getting to Know the Lovely Long Beach Peninsula

We chose to hunker down on Washington's Long Beach Peninsula during the end of summer craziness that is Labor Day Weekend. We also wanted to avoid the most popular place to camp in the area, Cape Disappointment State Park, for the same reason...instead we're staying at Cranberry RV Park, a small adults only full hookup RV park a couple miles North of the town of Long Beach.

In very short order we've become enchanted with this peninsula. The wide sandy beach is inviting to those on foot, horseback and automobile and is said to be the longest beach in the US. There are car free zones as well.

Horses and birds on the beach.

There is a wide, grassy dune and conifer buffer between the beach and the homes and businesses. Deer browse among the lovely swaying grasses. The paved Discovery Trail, running 8.5 miles from Long Beach to Ilwaco, cuts through the dunes...a perfect way to spend a day on the bikes, or walk a loop of beach and trail.

The trail curves gracefully among the low dunes, the ocean serenades you just out of sight.

There's art along the Discovery Trail and Lewis and Clark interpretive signs.

Ilwaco is the Southernmost town on the peninsula and has a nice Saturday Market in a lovely harborside setting during the summer. Not too much produce, but what there was, was good!

The view as you walk the Ilwaco Saturday market,

This market runs rain or shine, Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend was a little rainy.

Cranberries are farmed on the peninsula and Washington State University has a nice little museum where you can learn about the history of cranberry production.

Excellent displays and information about the entire cranberry farming process from the old days to the present.

Bog boots!

We hiked about 6 miles at Leadbetter Point State Park, situated at the North end of the Peninsula. Hiking the perimeter trails takes you through a variety of habitats: Bay side tidelands, salt marsh, dune forest, grassy dunes and ocean beach.

The forest opens onto the wide open tidelands of Willapa Bay on the East side of the peninsula.

Crossing to the West side of the peninsula you traverse the grassy dunes and drop onto to the beach.
This section had ropes to keep you out of the Snowy Plover nesting zone.

As we walked South on the beach the fog rolled in and we spied royal terns and seagulls resting along the water line.

Walking a foggy beach is an odd sensation, from the center of the beach
we could barely see the grassy dunes or the crashing waves!

Gotta watch your step walking through the forest!

Another stop was the Willapa Bay Oyster House Interpretive Center where we learned a bit about the oyster farming history of the area.

Fishing boats and discarded oyster shells in Oysterville.

There are staggering amounts of oyster shells, both whole and ground, all over this small community.

We've only been here two and a half days and I already had so many photos I couldn't wait any longer to post them! We're really enjoying the casual, friendly, beachy vibe to this place. Lots of people own vacation homes or even lots where they set up their RV for the summer here. And we can walk two blocks to the beach from our RV park...perfect for sunset strolls.

The Dry Season in the Rain Forest, PLUS...Fabulous Fungus!

We've spent the last week in Forks, WA. About 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean and about 30 miles from the West entrance to Olympic National Park, Forks is ideally located for exploring a variety of terrain. Having arrived during the wrong time of the month to easily access the beach during low tides we spent most days hiking in the rain forest. With July and August being the driest months of the year, we enjoyed the beauty of the rain forest trails without the muddy feet...though I would love to see the rain forest in all its dripping glory some time.

Kloshe Nanitch Trail
In an effort to avoid end-of-summer weekend crowds on the trail, our first hike took us 20 miles East on highway 101; from foggy Forks to the sunny banks of the Sol Duc River and up to an old fire lookout site. The Kloshe Nanitch trail is a strenuous three mile climb through forest that opens up to views East into the Olympic Mountains and West to the ocean...if the skies are clear.

A couple of goofballs happy to be done climbing this mountain!
We could see lots of clear cut sites and replanted forest, along with the marine layer obscuring the ocean.

The crystal clear Sol Duc River near the trail head.

Bogachiel River Trail and Wetlands Loop
On Free National Park Day we chose to avoid the main Park entrance and hiked the lesser known Bogachiel River Trail. This turned out to be a wonderful way to experience rain forest and even enter the National Park (after two miles of hiking) without the crowds. We hiked about three miles of the River trail and took the Wetlands Loop on the return. This trail goes through beautiful second growth forest and is home to elk, which we saw signs of but no animals in the flesh. If you are short on time the 3 mile wetlands loop trail is an excellent alternative to the National Park.

This extremely tall tree made a great natural bridge.

It's pretty much impossible to photograph the giant trees in this forest,
but their enormous feet can give a good idea of the size of these beauties.

Fungus flowers grace the foot of another giant moss covered tree.

Hoh River Trail, Olympic National Park
We did drive into Olympic National Park one day and hiked 5 miles of the Hoh River Trail. I'd say we saw more enormous old growth trees along the Hoh River than on our Bogachiel River hike (above), but the longer drive and summer crowds at the Hoh Visitor Center made the Bogachiel hike a better deal.

Morning sunlight on leaves and hanging mosses.

You need to watch your step on this trail.

Along the river the vine maples provide a splash of color.

We took a break from hiking one day and went on a logging operations tour offered by the Forks Chamber of Commerce. Logging is one of those things that, as a nature lover, I have a hard time with...but I do understand it is an integral part of life in North America, so since we're in logging country we might as well learn a little about how we harvest our wood.

Like many nature lovers, I've always been put off by clear cut forests and the unnatural uniform look of a replanted forest. We learned that clear cutting is done by private companies because it is the most commercially viable way to remove and replace a forest (it takes about 40 - 50 years to regrow a forest for harvest). Selective logging, a much less destructive process, is generally done on US Forest Service lands for forest management.

Our tour guide, Joe, spent 40 years in the logging industry around Forks and now volunteers once a week for the Chamber. 11 of us loaded into a van and Joe took us to an active logging site where they were harvesting entire trees, including the roots; normally the trees are cut off above ground and the roots are left behind to decompose. These trees with roots will be used to help shore up highway 101 along the Hoh River and are also used to provide immature salmon habitat in local rivers.

It was fascinating to watch this large tree with big branches being moved by one man in this huge piece of equipment.
Stacked in front are trees with roots. Most of the dirt will be poked out of the roots before the trees are trucked out.

Joe then took us to a small, old local mill that processes any size of trees. That is significant because modern high tech mills only process smaller logs because everything is farmed these days and the trees are of a more uniform size. Somehow this mill gets larger trees occasionally.

Eight foot chunks of logs were cut into large planks here.

The tour was interesting and informative though it didn't change my opinion of clear cutting and replanting. Though the tour is free, donations are requested in support of the Forks Chamber of Commerce. We followed it up with a visit to the small Forks Timber Museum and a good burger and fresh chips and fries at Blakeslee's Bar and Grill.

We did make it out to some of the beaches during our stay, though not during a super low tide, and usually with only a brief period of clear(ish) skies before the fog would roll in.

Second Beach in the late afternoon with wispy clouds and marine layer building in the distance.

Within 30 minutes the clouds were taking over Second Beach.

On our last full day we stayed close to camp and took care of daily life stuff and took a short hike in the Elk Creek Conservation Area right in Forks. What a lovely little trail this turned out to be! We saw evidence of the elk the creek is named after, we saw baby salmon or steelhead in the creek, and we saw some amazing fungus. If you're staying in Forks and want to experience the rain forest without driving far this 3 mile trail is definitely worth your time.

Pretty Elk Creek is an important year round habitat for salmon fry.

This is an untouched photo of a 3 foot long patch of neon orange fungus...
quite a shock of color in the forest!

We stayed at the Forks 101 RV Park, a full hookup park with spacious grassy sites in the back section, furthest from highway 101. Note, there is a row of permanent dwellings on the South edge of the RV park, some are nice small manufactured homes, some are very old, very sad looking single wides. If you can overlook the permanents, this is a decent place to stay and it's right across the highway from the terrific Forks Outfitters complex with a good grocery store, hardware store and casual clothing store. We had good 4G Verizon signal here. Oh, and there is a shooting range about two blocks away, fortunately it wasn't being used very often when we were at home.

Site 50 at Forks 101 RV Park.

That's it for our time in Forks; as we head South and to the coast it looks like we've got a few days of rain ahead of us, to be expected in this part of the country. We've been extremely fortunate with the weather on the Olympic Peninsula this summer so we really can't complain. We'll just bundle up and get out in the weather or hibernate in our cozy little home on wheels.

One more thing...We are so fortunate to be living this amazing RV lifestyle in the age of the Internet, with instant access to information right at our fingertips. We can research places to stay, things to do at each stop, questions about issues with the RV, or healthcare, or insurance, stay in touch with family and friends, write the blog...the list goes on and on...clearly the Internet is a key component of this lifestyle. How we connect to the Internet, with a good strong signal, is one of the most common questions we field from people in RV parks.

When we were studying this lifestyle, trying to decide if this was what we wanted to do, one source stood out in the RV blogosphere as the place to go for connectivity information: Technomadia; and to this day, two years into this lifetsyle for us, they remain the premier source. Chris and Cherie have consolidated their excellent research and advice into the RV Mobile Internet Resource Center...THE place to go for all your connectivity questions! Check it out to learn the most current information available on this vital piece of the RV lifestyle puzzle.