#19 Harstine Island State Park

1. Parking Lot is just a small round about. It has toilet and pick nick tables and one has a grill.

2. The surroundings are just beautiful.

3. This is where the west trail intersects with the main trail to the water.

4. The main trail comes out to the beach. I got there a little after low tide. Complete with your choice of man or nature made benches....take your pick if you are so inclined. Not me, to much to see and frankly the trail did not justify it. I just stopped for a minute to put on some sun block, as the sun was trying to burn though the clouds, it was trying also to burn though me. From here also you can see McMicken Island. Only accessible by boat or if the tide is out you can walk there on the exposed sea floor. Next time I will be sure to get there as the tide is going out so I have the time to walk the beach and check out the island. With this as part of your planed trip it would make a good day of walking. Otherwise there is not much trail. I found also this great wall of sedimentary clay soil eroding slowly out from under the roots of very large trees that will soon look like the one in the McMicken pic.

5. So I was walking along and my ears picked up on what sounded to me like rain. I knew that that was not possible considering the present atmospheric condition. A water fall I thought. Well kind of both I found out. The upper cliff was raining water onto the clay hill side making these great rock topped little towers. The gentle, rain like, water flow slowly exposed rocks in the clay and then was washing away the soil around the rocks, the rocks creating an umbrella affect, protecting the soil immediately underneath itself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bul829HOyHc
A little crappy video of the "raining waterfall".

The fresh water feed appears to be much adored by life on the beach.  This mass of Mussels and this large bed of Sand Dollars both lay in the path of fresh water flowing on the beach.

6. Down the beach a little ways I ran into these younger guys digging for mollusks. They had some huge Geoducks and some clams.

One of the guys held up one of the ducks they dug up for the photo op.


With every life......... there is a death. A cruel harsh reality of nature.
So it is fitting I guess to see death even in such beauty and abundant life.........

A crab that walks no more.......

















A baby dear who's life was cut oh so short........ I wonder it's sad tale. ( no pun intended)

7. The trail was wide and well kept.

                                                I wonder what lives in there.....................

8. The path led along side a steep slope, perfectly lined with ferns and with quite old trees towering over head.

9. Now how did you come to be belly up in the dead middle of the trail? Partied a little hard last night aye?

10. The path is much less traveled over here as you can tell it is much smaller and a tad overgrown in some spots. A nice trail but right close to here I got into some bad batch of mosquito's. Boy oh boy. But it's o.k., I got one good in the end......look at all that blood!

11. The trail came out at the main road and there was a spot for a couple of cars to park.

12. On the way back I took the "cut across" path and ran into this chipmunk chirping away at me, like I was going to try and take his meal from him or something. I was just trying to tell him it was impolite to talk with his mouth full.







All and all a very good trip, great weather. A good start I would say.

Introduction

I am going to go to each day hike location listed in Craig Romano's book, Day Hiking Olympic Peninsula, And take pic's and share a bit of my experiences. There will be others trips I will document not in his book that I will post also. You will know the trip I post is from his book with the reference # at the head of the post in accordance to the number he has given a trail in his book.

I am doing this to help get healthy in my head as well as body. I am reinventing myself. Leaving behind what I did not like of my past and expanding on the good that am left with, that I have to hold onto. Grounding myself in a healthy solid place, creating a future for myself no one can take away, in good memories, a healthy now and a good feeling about who I am, what I am doing and where I am going. Sharing my trips on a blog, for me, is like......even though I am alone on my outings, I am still sharing it with some one. And it makes me feel better about it and adds a bit more sense of purpose. Even if no one really reads or follows it.

I hope my post's are entertaining or maybe a tad interesting or at least slightly geographically informative.