Day 1 & 2 Rialto Beach to Yellow Banks

On Friday, Matt, Christopher and I ventured up to Port Angeles to meet up with Christopher's hiking buddies for a 3 day 20 mile hike from La Push to Ozette Lake. I will begin by saying that I have never hiked with a heavy backpack before nor would I call myself gung ho for camping, but this is what my man loves to do and I wanted to experience it for myself. We arrived at Rialto beach around 11 a.m. and began our hike with the most wonderful weather you could have asked for and believe me I was praying for dry warm weather.

Unfortunately, the tides were higher than normal creating a difficult trek for us midway through the 1st day. My new vocabulary word for this trip is "Maytagged" which means getting hit with a wave. I can't even count the number of times we were trying to get over and around two capes that we got maytagged. Luckily, I had on my rain pants which lessened the shock of getting hit by a wave. I must say I was quite pleased with my gaiters and rain pants! Now my feet are another story! Sore doesn't even cut it. But I will pat myself on the back for trudging on thru putting one foot in front of another and continuing on without complaint. We backpacked thru what I call rock heaven, log heaven , baseball heaven (round rocks the size of baseballs), low tide flat heaven, and sand heaven. Every time we hit sand heaven "Thank you Jesus" rolled off my tongue!

One of my most challenging parts included a 30 foot vertical rope climb. Once Christopher pointed out what we were going to do I said to myself "Oh My God!" At this point, my feet are wet and throbbing, my quads are aching, and my energy level is depleting, but the show must go on and I take hold of that rope and pull/walk myself up that hill without stopping. I had the biggest smile once I got to the top. Seriously couldn't believe I had the energy to do that, but I did and we had to do it again further up the trail! Our second day of trekking we scored yet again beautiful warm sunny weather. It is quite remarkable we hadn't been drenched by the rain. We met up with Christopher's buddies who started the trek in reverse from Sand Point Beach to Rialto and met up with them some ways past Norwegian Memorial. It was very enjoyable to share lunch with them as we continued heading north and they south. Our day's journey had at least 4 miles of walking on rocks something I would never imagined myself doing. It was such a relief to hit pebbled beach even if it only lasted a couple minutes. I was glad to hear I wasn't the only one with sore feet. When rock heaven finally ended and we hit sandy beach Matt fell to the sand and pretended to sleep.

I have been wanting new adventures and having a partner like Christopher is the best thing for me. I would have never done something like this without him. I couldn't even imagine a trip like this and I am thankful I get to share it with him.
Looking forward to the next trip!