One foggy morning, we got an early low-tide start on a trek to the distant Dungeness lighthouse, perched at the tip of a curving spit of sand on the invisible horizon. It was my just-turning-70 right of passage and a 12-mile test of my often problematic knees.
Stopping along the way to photograph hot pink seaweed, darting shore birds and giant driftwood, we took our time, then spent an hour exploring the historic lighthouse and keeper's home, chatting with the friendly volunteers who manned the site.
The sea didn't wait for us. As the incoming tide covered ever more of the hard-packed sand we'd come out on, the hike back to camp became a real slog through soft sand, rocks and kelp. There's only one way in and out and we were grateful not to be those hikers who've been caught on extreme high tides, forced to cover the miles crawling atop stacked driftwood at the high tide mark.
The sun shone on the sea stacks in the picturesque town of La Push, where we bought smoked salmon from a young Makah fisherman who sold it at his backdoor in the tribal subdivision as a blond nameless cat wrapped herself around our ankles. Earlier, we'd visited the Makah natural history museum, an incredible display of native artifacts buried under a coastal mudslide and unearthed mostly intact, a Pacific northwest version of Pompeii.
The fog rolled in like meringue, nourishing the trees and undergrowth and thick emerald mosses. A visit to a big cedar felt like a visit to the Hobbit world, the giant's gnarled and twisted roots and sister trees making a cozy home for a forest elf. Heading to yet an even bigger tree -- the reputed largest cedar in the world -- we were stunned at the clear-cut hillsides, deforested of all life and a jarring contrast to the lush green stillness of the living forest.
A drive over bumpy logging roads took us to the "biggest cedar," spared by loggers who were impressed by its massive size. Saw marks at the base of this 178-foot specimen indicated it was saved at the last minute. But now, deprived of the communal shelter of neighboring trees, this monarch stood exposed to the elements, without bark and showing little green at the top -- a gray ghost nearing the end of its life.
A herd of Roosevelt elk raised ears in alarm before bolting into the forest as we headed toward the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, one of planet's best examples of a temperate rainforest, receiving up to 14 feet of rain a year. Moss grew thickly atop a phone booth at the entrance to this World Heritage site, an indication of things to come. Breathing in the cool, fragrant air, we hiked along the misty Hall of Mosses trail, enveloped in emerald stillness, feeling we should speak in whispers in the midst of such grandeur. If ever there was a place to become a tree-hugger, this was it.
iPhone photo gallery at:http://www.photoshow.com/watch/fr3Ka5zY
