Shi Shi Beach

Shi Shi Beach is the most northern section of beach in Olympic National Park, and a scant 6 miles south of the Cape Flattery the most north western point in the United States. Be for-warned that getting to Shi Shi requires going to the ends of the earth, a long (5 hour) drive from Seattle and then a 2 mile hike through what can be after rain a mud slog. But the beach is wild and beautiful, and if your lucky the weather is wonderful and there is no one else around.

Getting There

First of all you can take a look at my Google Map, showing the route and all the finer points along the way, or you can read on here. The Olympic Peninsula lies tantalizingly close to Seattle, the eastern Olympic mountains are easily visible from Seattle (when not obscured by clouds) and yet getting there is no easy task. The first leg is usually going to end up on a ferry, and that involves timing and waiting, but once your underway its a gorgeous way to cross the sound. Once your up on the actual peninsula getting to your location involves circumnavigating obstacles, usually the Hood Canal and often the peninsula itself. Additionally the roads are marked at 60 miles an hour and that is if your lucky and when your not making your way through a small town like Sequim or Clallam. Top this off by the fact that when you get close to the ocean and the road winds its way in and around rifts cut by streams and along the coast your crawling along at 25 to 30 miles and hour. 60 miles is gonna take way more than an hour so don't calculate like their interstate miles.

As you pass through Port Angeles, you can pick up a back country wilderness permit and a loaner bear canister from the Ranger Station. They also have a copy of the tide chart, which comes in handy. Then make your way tediously along Highway 112, which hugs the coast and slows your travel to a crawl. Eventually you'll enter the Makah Reservation and come upon the small town of Neah Bay. You'll next need to purchase a recreational land use permit, you can buy one at many locations, Washburn General store is probably the most convenient, you can pick it up right in the checkout line. Then exist town heading south west, initially following signs to Cape Flattery and then heading south across the Sooes River following the signs to the Makah Fish Hatchery to the Makah Shi Shi access trail. The trail head is advertised for day use only and suggests parking your care at one of the secured locations you passed on the way in. We say Donna's, advertised about a mile before the parking for the trail, we opted for the next one closer,
Tillys, we had read about on the net. About .6 miles before the parking lot you'll go up a small hill and on the left hand side there is a picket fence and white trailer. I dropped the packs and family off at the trail head and drove back, Tilly was chatting on the phone when I arrived, I paid her the $10 fee to park over night and hoofed it back down to to join the family. It was 5 pm. We had left our house at 10 am, along the way we waited around 20 minutes for a ferry and spent 40 minutes eating Chinese food in Sequim.

Getting to the Beach

The Makah Shi Shi trail is 1.7 miles long and is an access trail that cuts across private land. The first half of the trail was re-built in 2003 and is a nice board walk and series of bridges, elevating one above the muck, mire and water. The second half of the trail returns to the old logging road, which can be very wet and muddy, it was when we hiked it. As you hike along the trail (at this point a muddy road) you'll hear the ocean off to your right, eventually the trail ends at signage noting the entrance to Olympic National Park, you can self issue a Wilderness Permit if you haven't done so already. A steep trail leads down the bluff to the northern end of Shi Shi Beach. Shi Shi stretches south for 4 miles to the Point of the Arches. When we went there was no one else on the beach, the second night one other set of campers (father and son) hiked in, but they left early before us on our last day. Note though that at busier times it can reportedly be quite crowded, this article, notes that over one labor day weekend there was 190 groups camping at the beach. There are several campsites in the woods just off of the beach, and hundreds of places to camp on the beach itself. We chose to camp near the northern end of Shi Shi by a small un-named stream, given the easy access to water and sore backs from packing it in. There were also some great spots near Petroleum Creek, close down to the other end of the beach near Point of the Arches. The water runs brown with tannin from the fallen trees but once filtered is safe to drink.

Enjoying the Beach

Take a kite, the beach is a great place to fly them, especially at Point of Arches where the wind whips through the sea stacks. One thing I wish we had done was to take food to cook over the fire, like tinfoil dinners, traditional hamburger of salmon. You'll also want to ensure you have tide charts, visiting Point of the Arches is better done in low tide, and if you want to traverse around the point you'll only be able to at low tide. You'll want to bring a camera to capture the memory and the beauty. You'll also have opportunities to view wild life. We saw osprey, bald eagles and seals (a couple of dead ones as well as one eating in the surf). There are also reports of racoon, deer and bears. You'll also want rain gear and a wind breaker, depending on the season you may also want a hat and gloves. We had a great time taking in the ocean in solitude, listening and watching the waves crash. Exploring the flotsam and jetsam that had washed up on the beach (I never knew there were so many fishing buoys out there floating around). Another one of our favorite past times was building a huge beach fire at night.

Our meals were as follows :

• Tuesday night dinner : Chicken Montana. Rice with two chicken bullion cubes, lipton chicken soup and a bag of chicken. Hot jello for dessert.
  
• Wednesday breakfast : pancakes & hot chocolate
  
• Wednesday lunch : brownies (made at home), Odwalla bars, trail mix and some beef jerky
• Wednesday dinner : Tasty Bites Dal Mahkni (lentils and pinto beans) over rice, pudding
  
• Thursday breakfast : pancakes & hot chocolate
  
• Thursday lunch : Odwalla bars, trail mix and the rest of the beef jerky
  

The morning of our return, Miles started to get a fever. He made it up the hill and part way down the trail before he gave out, I ended up carrying him back the last mile. We than began the return journey, over the river, along the coast, to the ferry and home.

• Flickr Photos
• Video
  
• Route from Shi Shi Parking to Beach
• Route from camping spot on Shi Shi to Point of Arches