Olympic National Park - The coast and beaches

After the Hoh rain forest, we made our way over to the La Push area. We stayed at the Manitou Lodge bed and breakfast.





It was a perfect location to access 2 amazing beaches; rialto beach and second beach. Both have huge sea stacks that are very photogenic. I liked the way second beach was laid out so I decided to focus on that beach for both sunset and sunrise the next morning. There is about a 0.7 mile hike through the forest to get down to the beach so J and I headed out there around 5:30pm to check it out.



We then headed back to eat dinner, and I had to rush to get back out there for sunset. Unfortunately, there were no clouds but I managed to snap a few.





At certain parts of the year, the sun sets through the hole in the rock formation, kind of like the one in Big Sur. You can see the size of the formations from the surfers walking along the beach.

Hoping for a better sunrise, I woke up and walked back through the pitch black forest the next morning. As I broke out of the forest, I was greeted with a thick cloud of fog blanketing the beach. However, as the sun began to light up the sky it started to burn off.



It was only me and one other person there shooting trying to capture the ever-changing light.





The fog was a bit too thick for any dramatic sunrise, but instead created more of a subtle pastel color in the sky.







I took so many, it was hard to sort through them. This one may be my favorite, with the fog on one side and the blue sky on the other. The wet sand creates a nice reflection of the sky as well.



As the sun rose above the trees, it provided a bit of diffused light on the sea stacks.





After about 2 hours of shooting, I headed back to the lodge. We packed up and left for Seattle, which I will be updating on my next post.....however it is all eating and tourist stuff ahah.

We had a good time at Olympic National Park. I'd say the diversity of the park is what makes it so appealing, but now I have to decide what park to visit next.

Brandon Yoshizawa
B.A.Y | photography
Landscape and Wildlife photography
www.bay-photography.com