Pushing on to La Push, WA

Monday morning we left the Hoh River Rainforest campground after a great but short stay. We had a hankerin' for more beach time so we moved over to the Mora Campground about 20 or 30 miles away in La Push, WA yet still within the Olympic NP.
Before leaving I got up early and walked the Hoh River Rainforest trail before the mosquitoes were awake.



I could tell I was the first trail customer of the day as my face was breaking a spider web spun overnight across the trail every other stride it seemed. What a beautiful walk it was. Friend Pete terHorst has hiked this previously and told me beforehand to just keep walking...it gets better and better the deeper you move into the rainforest. You were spot on Pete, thanks for the tip as I thoroughly enjoyed myself right from the start.



Now with my bear encounter the previous evening don't you know my head was on a swivel. I would stop at the higher points along the trail and look 360 degrees and listen very carefully. No bear sightings, which was fine by me being all alone and about 3 miles deep into the rainforest.
This was on my mind.
I did spy this little guy, have no clue what it is, some kind of a slug - anybody out there hazard a guess? I'd love to know....thanks.



I kept walking as Pete instructed and made it to a nice waterfall and sat for about 30 minutes just listening to the roar of the water, absorbing the peacefulness of the setting and inhaling the aroma of the minty, fresh clean air beneath the falls.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.



Debbie and I piddled away the afternoon beachcombing at Rialto Beach viewing the southerly end of the offshore island archipelago that stretches northward into Alaska. We noted that we will be seeing a lot of this type of country for quite some time - which suits us to a "T".

We then ambled over to First Beach, Second Beach and - wait for it - Third Beach and toured the little fishing town of La Push, WA.
La Push appears to be a mostly native American community with fishing and some tourism being their mainstays.


We saw a few locals doing this along the river flowing into La Push.



He's probably been doing this every day since age 5.

He would set the net across the river on floats, presumably at the start of the day, and then commence harvesting at the landside and work his way out into the river and the end of the net, corralling the fish as he goes. He helped prod the fish along by womping the net's supporting cable with a stick as he moved from landside to the end of his net way out in the river, collecting the net and fish as he went. Old school fish harvesting, most likely done this way for thousands of years around these here parts.

After watching all of this hard work we got tired and returned to camp for a nap.
Picked up some driftwood for a campfire this evening...this stuff burned great, our first campfire of the trip.
Check out Jacque Blaque Shellaque rockin' the beret, campfire side, Mora Campground, Olympic NP - pure contentment on that face my friends.



Speaking of contentment, check out this HUGE shorebird catching the last of the days rays next to our campsite.



Wednesday we will head off some 40 miles or so away to the Sol Duc (pronounced sole duck)Campground (yes, still in Olympic NP - this place is massive!) to check out some hot springs, waterfalls and more river hiking/exploring.

All is muy tranquillo here and we are having the time of our lives......later good folks.

Incidentally, cell service around here has been spotty at best and data service has been next to nil. So what I am doing is writing the text of my posts in a Word file and then when we get to a spot later on in our travels with decent data service I copy and paste into the blog, add the photos and then publish. It really helps to have a strong data connection as the photos can take a while to upload to the blog.
So you might notice a couple of days lag between the post publish date and the events I'm discussing.
It really works out well as it gives me a chance to write about things as they are fresh in my mind and also edit and think thru the post a little bit before sending it out.