The Beach

We are about 15 miles from the shore of the Pacific, here in Forks. At the airport where we are conducting the study, we're about 9 miles closer. You wouldn't know it at the airport - no salt sea smell, no gulls wheeling overhead.

Rialto Beach is north of the mouth of the Quillayute River. South of the river are First Beach, Second Beach and Third Beach, named in order north to south (further south are Beaches 1 through 6, named south to north, but mysteriously lacking a Beach 5. There are Ruby Beach and Shi Shi Beach as well, so it's not all numbers). All of these beaches are part of the Olympic National Park, which covers the beaches, a strip of land protecting the Queets River from glacier to ocean, and then most if not all of the Olympic Mountain Range. Confusingly, there is an adjacent Olympic National Forest, and the Park (not the National Forest) encompasses the Hoh Rain Forest and the Quinault Rain Forest.

Here's a good map of the Olympic National Park.

While a guide book I have describes Rialto Beach as "spooky", many of the locals recommend it as the superior beach in the area. It has a 1.5 mile walk to "Hole in the Wall", a dramatic natural arch with a tidal pool behind it. (To be fair, about as many others recommend Second Beach, which is known for the 20 minute walk in the woods to get to, and its own multiple tidal pools.)
I've been to Rialto Beach twice now, once with Nate and Glen and once with HomoDomi's family, who came up to visit over the weekend. Nate, Glenn and I walked down the beach to Hole in the Wall -- the Parks path was reported to have washed out in the December storms that caused so much damage to the whole Pacific Northwest coastal areas, and indeed, I found nothing longer the 20 feet of tended "path". The beach was an easier walk.

The first thing you see when you step onto Rialto Beach is a scattering of tall islands just over the water, perhaps close enough to walk to at a very low tide. The largest of these is named: James Island. It served as a fortress for the Quilleute Indians when they were being raided for slave-trade. In those days you could run to it at low tide (and perhaps swim at high tide). The Army Corps of Engineers dredged a channel between James Island and the shore, and now pilot whales and others swim through it during their migrations north in late March and south in the fall.
I am not much of a Beach Person. I like to check them out, and I am not immune to filling my pockets with shells and keepsakes. But I don't particularly long to lie on, or party at, a beach. There's always too much wind -- after an hour or two, my ears are tired of the swooshing and crashing, and instead of being awed by my own insignificance against the mighty ocean, I just want to be calmly insignificant, somewhere quiet, without pounding natural rhythms. I mention this because I don't notice beaches much. After my initial exuberant embrace of them, I'm mostly cringing from the sun or the wind or the waves. But I am told that Rialto Beach is unusual. HomoDomi thought it one of the most beautiful beaches he's ever seen.

It is quite wild, for one thing. I've only been there at lowish tide, but even then, there's very little sand. And the sand is black, or more exact, dark gray. Above the sand is a wide swathe of dark gray rocks -- all smoothed and rounded, not sharp at all. When you start to examine them, particularly once you get about halfway up the beach towards Hole in the Wall (beyond the reach of the casual rock collector and small children) you'll notice that the dark gray is made up of the full spectrum of color. I found brown, green, yellow, white, dark red and even pink rocks, among the grey and black. They range from tiny pebbles to fairly large rocks -- I brought home an almost perfectly round, flat gray rock about as big as my hand, including my extended fingers.

Above the rocks are piles and piles of driftwood, including whole trees, like beached dinosaurs at the top of the shore. They fell down during long ago landslides (some were sawed), drifted down river to the ocean, and have been tossed back up onto earth by the seas. We found one (cut) monster about 4 feet in diameter with rings enough to date it back to before Lewis and Clark were exploring south of here (but who knows how long it has been resting high on Rialto Beach?).

Behind the driftwood (drift trees?) is a line of tall dead trees, still standing, stripped of all greenery and bark. I don't know what these are -- I mean, I don't know how the eco-system keeps this band of trees still standing. And when they ultimately do fall over, do the trees behind them die? How did they get so tall, and then die? Or maybe they are still alive, ghosts of trees, perhaps.

And last of all, behind those, is forest, dark, green, lush, and miraculously quiet, sheltered from the roar of the surf by the piles of trees and the stand of dead ones. We thought it was rain forest, because it is lush, full of ferns and shiny green undergrowth and masses of hanging moss on every branch, but once we saw real Rain Forest, we realized this is just wet forest. (Story about that to come.)

Both days were lovely at the beach (aside from the noise). Glenn and Nate were copacetic walkers, even though we misjudged the distance to Hole in the Wall (pictured right, from inside, standing above a pink-tinged tidal pool filled with sea urchins and green anemones) and got both tired and concerned that we would not make it back to the car before the tide climbed so high the beach would be impassable.

The children contested dominance for the beach with the waves, and lost, wetly. The grown-ups worried about riptides and sneaker waves, and collected sea-bleached driftwood to take home to burn (it is said to give off blue and green flames).

This last photo, I can't weave into the story -- it shows the standing rocks at the north end of the beach (Hole in the Wall is just to the right and behind them).

Update on the car

After a $65 lesson in where to actually place the teeth of the jumper cables on a Mini (it's not straightforward to me -- that is, apparently you don't put the positive on the big + and the negative on the big -, but rather something different which the tow-truck operator knew to do even though he's never seen a Mini Cooper before) I know now the correct way to jump start my car. She's running fine, now, no problem. I just have to make sure not to leave her lights on without turning on the engine.

I am having intermittent problems posting to the blog (due to the wireless access in the hotel) so I will post when possible.

The dark

Today it rained all day, and the darkness after sunset was, as the poets say, velvety to the touch. To say it rained, I mean, there was steady precipitation, something between drizzle and rain drops, at all times. Not unpleasant (I think the landscape was prettier looming behind misty clouds than in the full sun we had previously, where you can clearly see the ugly fields of clear-cut woods and the leafless birches stark against the spruce) but definitely wet, and more definitely, thickly dark out on the airport.

So of course my car died. I think it is just the battery, although I still have headlights and dome light and fan (but they are slowly fading). Our nice participants this evening (a couple who moved here from Hawaii, following the waves -- they surf just west of here, and own a small surf shop to support their avocation) tried to give me a jump start. Even 20 minutes of priming didn't stop my car from going "click click click" when trying to start it. (There is the possibility we wrecked what little battery was left by charging a Mini Cooper with a pick-up truck's much larger battery, but I'm not going to think about that.)

It was inconvenient, but no worse. I couldn't train people sitting in my car as I had been doing (no lights), so I stood in the rain and leaned in to their cars to train them. I couldn't ferry people out to the guys, so Glenn had to jump in the third car we have (the big SUV under the canopy can't be moved, it's very carefully placed) and drive back and forth and then get back into position every time. And while between participants I could have read a book by the dim light of my flashlight, I hadn't brought one, because I didn't think I'd have the time (usually I and the participant sit in my car and chat during the inevitable gaps in our procedure, which is how I'm hearing so many stories about the airport, the crazies, the cougars, hunting, self-sufficient farming, the war between city council and the independent types who live in Forks -- and not Seattle or Port Angeles or any other less remote city -- for a reason, and the other war still being fought between private logging industry and environmentalists and the local Hoh and Quilleute Indians).

I had two long hours, alone, in the dark, in the cold, with the car dead while the guys completed their part of the study. I was pretty damp from toes (walking through puddles taught me that my hiking boots aren't waterproof as I thought) through shoulders (two layers of fleece were soaked by the steady drizzle-rain). Saw no cougars, no elk, no black bear (another rumored denizen), no mating couple of coyotes (who left scat and a thick brush of moulting fur near our arc of traffic cones the first night we were here). It was pretty silent, but for the croaking of frogs and occasionally a bird call -- apparently there's a bird here which cackles like a witch.

I made a little video of the experience, standing next to my car, panning a full 360 around, but it's in the wrong format. I'll post it tomorrow.

The Study

We are set up and running the study at what looks like an abandoned airport. We have seen one plane, a little Cessna, land there, Tuesday afternoon. It taxi'd up to what used to be the reception building (it was torched at some point in recent years and has not been reopened). So far as we saw, no one got out or in, and the plane turned around and took off again.

We are on the far side of the landing field from that burnt-out building, at the top of the "north-south" runway, which until tonight we had been assured has not been used in years. The Cessna landed on the "east-west" runway. I use quotes because neither are true to their ostensible directions. The airport, which is made up of the two runways and a webbing of taxi-lanes between and around them, could be described as two toes of a duck's foot, extending out from a point roughly to the southeast. According to our participants, the airport was built during WWII, and was used then for Coast Guard planes, patrolling the Pacific. The pavement is 12 feet deep, I was told, and the "east-west" runway is long enough for a 747 to land and take off.

We were granted permission by the City Council to use the runway (the city gets a tidy sum of money), but according to some locals, the City Council does not have the right to rent out the space. While we cannot see any inhabited buildings from the runway, many people own 2-acre and 5-acre plots all around the landing field, and several of them view the airport as their own property.

We have had two extremely hostile people drive up and demand what right we have to be on the field. One woman was described by two independent participants as "that crazy lady in the Silver Dodge who lives right over there" immediately opposite where I hang out near the burnt out buildings. "She thinks she owns the place." She had taken pot shots at one young man when he and friends drove onto the runway with their "quads" (four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, the modern go-cart). Another man complained that it was such a pain to have to stop and wait for the police when she'd approach his own group of friends on their own quads -- her rifle loaded -- that they, too, quit playing on the runway after a few encounters with her. And he is her next door neighbor.

She drove up and questioned me. At the time, I had heard one set of these stories, and I did not recognize that she was driving a Silver Dodge. But it was very clear from the start that she was not friendly. At one point in the brief and hostile (on her part) conversation, she turned away as if to pick up something from the front seat next to her -- and I would not have been astonished if she had produced a rifle. However, I can sometimes charm the ooze out of people (I am particularly good when feeling in danger), and I managed to turn her anger back upon the City Council who approved my illegitimate right to be on her turf, and leave us in the clear. Tonight I noticed the Silver Dodge drive slowly by the entrance to the airport as she checked us out again.

The other angry person was a pilot, who had not been informed by the Council that the study was happening. He said that when there is a stiff wind from the south, planes often land on the runway we're using, which, according to the City Planner and Land Use Lawyer, was supposed to have been abandoned. Angrily, the pilot told us to keep our lights on and hope.

Who knows how used the airport, or either runway, is? One man assured me it was only used by drug runners. Another man, one of those who lives alongside, said the drug runners use the ocean (only 12 miles away) and most of the drugs in the county are actually locally produced. The pilot indicated the airport is regularly used. We've been there for three nights and two days, and have seen one plane. We have a radio ostensibly tuned to the FAA frequency (given to us by the city, to use to make sure we aren't crossing the east-west runway when someone is landing) and even that one plane didn't break radio silence.

Here's the set up. I sit near this blue building (which is in use, by the way -- it is the high tech Forks, WA National Weather Service weather station. They let off a balloon a couple times a day, and have lots of expensive new equipment housed in a falling apart shell of a building). Beyond it, in this photo, you can make out the torched control tower. I sit in my car just to the right of the DO NOT PASS sign (which you can't see) on the other side of the fence, on the airport field proper.

My job is to meet-and-greet. I meet the participant, explain what we're doing and train him or her on the method of measurement we're using, magnitude of estimation. Which is jargony, but it's not interesting, or simple, enough to explain here. When we're done with training, I drive the person out to where the guys are. I leave him or her there, and drive back to wait for the next person, train him in, and then ferry him out to the guys, picking up the person who's just finished. And so continue all evening from sunset until the last person is through, usually after midnight.

The guys are working about half a mile away, where the darkness is complete. We have a car set up with a canopy to keep the rain off the windshield (which doesn't work -- the air is so full of water that droplets form spontaneously on the windshield). Around the car in a perfect arc are traffic cones, set 100 feet away, at 5 degree angles. After dark we insert a piece of white PVC pipe into the top of each traffic cone -- in each pipe is a smart chip and an LED, which emits a tiny spark of very bright light. Nate sits in the car with the participant and operates two computers and a camera during the study. The LEDs turn on and off from a signal sent from the computer, so Nate can light up any 5 degree point on the arc, or all of them, or none of them.

Glenn has the most boring job, the most uncomfortable job, and the most scary job. He spends the whole evening standing outside (rain or shine), wearing the garments we are testing. He is further from the car than where I was standing when I took the photo (I'm about half-way), well outside of the glow of the headlights. The task of the participants is to tell us when they see Glenn out there, as they watch the LEDs light up and turn off, in progress on the arc around the car (so their head is turning slowly around).

So it's boring, and it's cold. And it's wet. And it's dark. Very dark. The scary part is that several people have mentioned the cougar who lives in the woods right near where we're set up. One woman said, "Oh, you don't need to worry about the cougar. She follows the elk, and until the elk are here, she won't be anywheres near."

"When will the elk get here?" I asked.

"I saw them here a week or so ago for the first time this year. You'll definitely see them cross the field, if you are here for two weeks."

!!

Nate and I debated for some time about whether to tell Glenn, standing quietly alone in the rainy dark all night, about the cougar, and in the end we did. This morning, he bought a little radio/CD player for noise, and some hiking poles to use as 3 feet of weak protection. He looked at the machetes and the rifles for sale in the local Ace Hardware, and spent several quiet moments staring at the stuffed cougar -- 7 foot long and 175 pounds at the least -- mounted on the wall above the checkout stand, but opted to think positively and rely on the cougar's good sense in choosing a local dog rather than himself for a snack one of these nights.

Big Cedar Tree

I drove north on 101 on Monday afternoon, en route to Forks, WA. The initial spur of road, from I-5 due west to Aberdeen, is not particularly note-worthy, the towns small and unremarkable or larger and gawky like a teenager who hasn't yet gotten used to the 3 inches growth in his shins. But then you turn north, and meander -- I'm not sure why, but for a while you're inland surrounded by forest, and then for a while you're driving right along the coast, with crashing waves thundering behind tree-covered berms, not 40 yards from the road. And then for the last 30 miles to Forks you're headed inland through forest, driving parallel to the Olympic range of mountains.

(How cool! I was able to see snow-capped Mount Olympus in the distance much of yesterday, and dreamt of gods and dryads all night. When I encouraged my colleagues to come round an obstruction -- a stand of trees, of course -- to see Olympus and its neighbors shining there in the light, they complained about leaving their work. "Sure, but we can see them anytime," the unappreciative Minnesotans said. "Not after it starts raining," I warned. Indeed, this morning we woke to rain, and all day the mountains have been hidden by the heavy skies. I expect tonight I shall dream of Neptune's naiads instead.)

Returning to my story about the drive up. I passed a sign for "The Biggest Sitka Spruce" going too fast (and feeling too late) to stop. But when I saw the sign for "Big Cedar Tree 0.3 miles" I thought it close enough to take a peek. The road was only somewhat maintained, and headed off of 101 to the east. I came round the final bend to a huge mounded roundabout, with the sign pictured above at the far end.
I parked next to the fallen tree the Big Cedar -> was pointed towards, somewhat disappointed. Yes, it was a big tree, but not as big as many I've seen, and too bad! it had died and been chopped down. It struck me as odd they'd keep the sign up for a dead tree.

Then I noticed a pathway between the sign and the huge stump. This led about 50 steps into the forest behind -- and then I realized there was a big cedar back in the woods.


And I mean big. The gnarled and sinewed root bulb is much taller than me -- I can walk under that arching tendon of root, without stooping. A very friendly family of four could live in the harboring hole in the center (behind the straight lighter-colored bit you see in this photo). It took me 50 paces to walk around the base.

The Swiss Family Robinson would have a field day building a home in the straggly gapped teeth at the top. No gentle tapering tower of greenery here -- this old ent has been through some serious battles and has survived topping, either by man or gale force winds.

The photo on the left was taken standing on the far side of the Big Cedar, looking back towards the roundabout where the car was parked. The dark stump in the distance is the same one next to my car in the photo. It is taller than I am - it looks small because of its distance, but still I hope you get a sense of how really really big this cedar is.

Off to the Rain Forest, Mountains and Ocean Shore

I'm off, first thing Monday morning, for two weeks on the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula, in a little town called Forks, Washington. From what I can tell from Google maps, it's about 20 miles from the Olympic National Park (home of one of the few temperate rain forests in the world, and snow-capped Mount Olympus - 7,965 feet (2,428 m) -- and ocean shore). Forks is also about 20 miles from Cape Alava, arguably the westernmost point of the contiguous United States (at low tide; at high tide, it ties with Cape Flattery, Washington about 20 miles north...and Cape Blanco, Oregon argues for the title, too).

I am not actually going for a vacation -- I will be there to run a study for that company I used to work for. Now I contract with them -- much better! We're looking at visibility of various materials at night, in rain. We will be in the rain forest after all, in a territory that averages over a foot of rain every month of the year, during I believe the rainiest month of the year. So part of this won't be so much fun -- I will be in an unheated shack (we're bringing some portable heaters) for about 5-6 hours every night of the week, after dark (so, from about 5 p.m. -- for setup -- to about midnight, if not later).

But the days will be all my own, and I've found myself a nice hotel with a suite, so I'll have a little kitchen and a sort of living room and I made sure it comes with full internet wireless (can't live without that, these days). Sooo, I expect to remain in touch, although my hours will be restricted somewhat. (And I'm sure this will throw off my sleep schedule, working during the evenings.) I do intend to blog, too.

I'm planning to take some hikes -- I've got two books from the library -- along the beach and in the rain forest, although it is likely to be wet. I want to hit that westernmost point, too, but I'm not sure I'll have the time -- I have to be back by 5 every day, and ready to work for hours. The hiking books say the best time to walk the trails they recommend is in winter and spring, so in that way I'm there at the right time -- but I don't know why that is (I haven't read the books carefully, except the pages with the hikes themselves described on them). Perhaps they are muddier in the summer and fall, so the cold helps the path be firm? Or, because it is rainforest, perhaps there is better greenery in the spring? I don't know, but I'm quite excited to find out, and am of course taking my camera.

More rainforest facts:

• Located in the largest true wilderness area in the contiguous United States, the Olympic rainforest is one of the world's very few temperate rainforests. (Other temperate rainforests may be found in Chile and New Zealand.)
• Some of the largest trees here measure 300 feet tall and over 60 feet around.
• In the Olympic rainforest, rainfall averages over 100 inches/year.
• In tropical rainforests, which may be located near the equator, rainfall can average between 100 and 400 inches/year.
• Temperatures in the Olympic rainforest rarely exceed 80 degrees, making conditions excellent for exploring!

(from the Lake Quinault Lodge website -- some distance from where I'll be, but still true)