Kayla's and my trek to Rialto Beach, located in Olympic National Park, began with a glorious two and a half hour wait for the fairy from Seattle to Bainbridge. After leaving Seattle we ended up staying in Port Angeles for the night and awoke to fog, as thick as grandma's soup. We headed down to the docks first thing in the morning while waiting to get a camping permit and I spotted this ghostly sailboat in the distant fog which made for my perfect picture of Port Angeles. I exceptionally like this picture over my other pictures I took of the pier in the fog due to the simplicy of the picture coupled with a pinch of mysterious, it reminds me of an image you would see in a Pirates of the Carribbean movie.
Camping at Rialto Beach requires a camping permit, which can be picked up at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles or as we saw driving to Rialto at a Ranger Station right before the beach, just a little FYI.
As we arrived at the parking lot, I knew this was going to be one of those weekends you remember forever. We soon found drift wood as wide around as I was tall lining the beach along with several standing rock croppings a couple hundred yards from shore. I soon had the picture I wanted drawn deep in my mind, sunsetting directly behind one of these impressive rock pillars. Not to be hinting at anything coming up but don't you skip ahead!
After putting on our packs, we departed for our three and a half mile hike. I mistakenly thought that we would just be prancing down the beach, skipping if you want to say, to a campsite nestled between massive prehistoric driftwood pieces without even breaking a sweat. Along my merry way I captured this picture of a small tree growing on top of one of the rock pillars, I was captivated by its determination to live.
Reality soon hit after the first mile was out of the way when the hike on the beach turned into hopping from rock to rock for the next, only accessible during low tide, mile. We came upon a majestic beach with rock pillars right off shore and nobody else around, I thought this would hopefully give me the perfect picture of Rialto Beach and an ultra relaxing place to sit in the sand, watching the waves come and go. We set up tent next to a massive piece of drift wood with the high water mark being only 20 feet from our tent, we were in for a great lifetime experience.
Beach Camp
As the sun grew lower, I explored different photograph compositions I would use for the upcoming sunset and settled on a tripod resting place near the water. Right as the sun started to set, a sea otter surfaced right in front of the tent cracking oysters on its chest for the next hour. Talk about something you only see in movies. But before we knew it, sunset was upon us. The following picture was captured right at sunset. Having the clouds arching toward the rock structures over a perfectly calm ocean help bring your eyes to the rocks, while still keeping you interested in the rest of the picture. Although the picture lacks an abundance of color, it still is captivating.
Sunset Rocks
As we sat on the beach, I captured this picture after sunset while looking up the beach. It depicts the evening spent at Rialto Beach with the sunset behind the jaunts of rock, coast line, and the outlines of trees with the mirrored reflection of the sky on the ocean. The clouds had also flattened out adding what I look at as layers of clouds all pointing toward the distant rocks. It was truly breath taking.
Beach Twlight
Waking up to low tide in the morning, the beach looked totally different. Last nights reflections had been replaced by the once invisible rocks covered in seaweed. Looking below at the picture, the seaweed encrusted rocks help guide the eye back and forth toward the rock pillar background.
Low Tide
As it turned out, we weren't the first travelers our beach had seen that morning. Footprints were left in the sand by a lone camper that had passed through.
Lonely Steps
On the hike back to the car in the morning, this trifecta of sea enemenies was spotted which turned out to actually be a very pleasing picture to the eye. The pink in the picture is an algea that was covering the bottom of certain tide pools right inside Hole in the Rock.
Sea Trifecta
My last pictures at Rialto Beach were right before we left as there was an area of small pebbles that had been left on shore from when tide receded. They turned out to be a pretty interesting subject to photograph and personally the third picture is my favorite but since it apears that it continues on forever and you can see the indentations left in the sand from when the sea receded away stranding them. When I envision displaying these pictures the set of three would be hanging side by side printed onto canvas wrapping around the edges.
Tranquil Rocks
After leaving Rialto Beach, we traveled into the Hoh Rain Forest which surprisingly gets 14 feet of rain per year average, I thought it rained a lot in Seattle... Around the visitor center of the Hoh, clovers cover the ground in a solid mat which proved to be quite the picture especially after converting it to black and white. Focus is in the bottom left third intersection of the picture with eye moving to the right and then farther back into the picture while fading off to envoke a sense of endless clovers, which there were!
Cloverville
Now cast your vote on which picture you believe is "The Perfect Picture" of Rialto Beach.
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