 
# A Place Called Kalaloch

## Lady Li Andre

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 by Lady Li Andre

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Also by Lady Li Andre

Available at Smashwords.com:

Writing the Journey

Eternal Knights: Dark Predator

Available Online in Print and Ebook:

Gold Magic: Eggling

## Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Where am I?

Chapter 2 - Where is the Rainforest?

Chapter 3 - Where are all the Animals?

Chapter 4 - Where are all the Sea Shells?

Chapter 5 - What is a Tidepool?

Chapter 6 - What about the Birds?

Chapter 7 - Where Can You See Marine Mammals?

Chapter 8 - What's with all the Driftwood?

Chapter 9 - What Kind of Rock is This?

Chapter 10 - If this is a Rainforest, Why isn't it Raining?

Conclusion

## Introduction

Time never stands still. I'm contemplating an anniversary but not the ordinary kind. I'm celebrating 15 years of enjoying my favorite place on earth. I don't know how many people can say that they have one particular spot like that.

I found it completely by accident. I'd had some work done on my vehicle and the mechanic told me to take it out for a long run to work the engine. I loaded up my family and headed for the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State. Everything was running fine until shortly after we passed through a tiny burg on the coast. Suddenly the heat gage started to rise. I pulled off the road in a wide space by a locked gate and shut down the engine. We were out in the middle of nowhere and there was no cell phone reception.

The kids quickly got restless so I decided to let them out for a bit, hoping that just sitting might help the van. The moment we got out, I could hear the crashing surf. I hadn't even realized we were still by the ocean. We walked down the gravel drive beyond the gate. It opened out into a wide space that I realized, by the picnic tables, must be a campground in the summer. My children instinctively made for the water.

We spent the better part of two hours exploring a log covered beach with unusually flat rocks on the wild Pacific coast. I fell in love with it and made a decision that this was where I was going to spend my next birthday. The oddest part of the adventure was that when we returned to the van, it started up without a problem and was fine from that point on.

I did keep my promise to myself and went back to that spot. It was much busier with all the campers crowding into the flat open space just above the surf-tossed logs but it still fascinated me. I was hooked. I had discovered South Beach Campground, part of the coastal strip of Olympic National Park.

I kept coming back whenever I could. I was amazed by all the small and wonderful discoveries I made each trip. I began to learn everything I could about the place. People began asking me questions about it and I learned even more in finding the answers.

Now 15 years later, I'm convinced this is one of the most beautiful and special places on the planet. I'm delighted to share this unique spot with you in the form of a book.

I've broken the book into chapters based on the most common questions that people have asked me over the years. Whether you plan to visit this spectacular area or just enjoy it as an armchair tourist, I hope you will also discover the magic of this place called Kalaloch.

Lady Li Andre - March 2014

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## Chapter 1 - Where am I?

It might surprise you how many times I've been asked, "Where am I?". While GPS technology has improved over the past decade and many travelers make use of it, there are still times when technology fails or people don't use it. Local road signs in Aberdeen can be confusing and I've run into people who really don't know where they are. Or think they should be. I've even had a few folks who got off the ferry in Port Angeles and took a wrong turn. They wanted to know why they hadn't gotten to Seattle yet.

Beyond those challenged by direction and maps, few anticipate the distances you need to travel to get anywhere in Olympic National Park. This is a big place! The Park is about one million acres and there are no roads across it. Highway 101 basically curves around the Park on three sides while the combination of Highway 12 and 8 close the gap between Aberdeen and Olympia.

Kalaloch is almost directly across from Seattle so no matter whether you are traveling north or south, you are about five hours from Seattle either way, depending on traffic and ferries if you're going north.

Most people don't realize that the Olympics are an island, not a peninsula. No matter how you get there, you have to cross water. You have the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the north, Puget Sound and Hood Canal to the east, and the Chehalis and Black River system to the south. There's actually a sign in Olympia by Black Lake that welcomes you to Olympus Island.

It's also amazing how many people don't realize they are in a National Park when they stop at Kalaloch. The emblem of the Park Service should be the first clue. There are welcome signs at both ends of the Kalaloch Strip but some visitors seem to miss them. This is important especially to dog owners. Dogs are usually not welcome in National Parks but the Kalaloch area is unique because dogs can visit the beach with their owners as long as they are on a leash of six feet or less.

### Kalaloch

I once had someone come up to me and ask where Kalaloch was even though they were already there. They were looking for a town. There is no town of Kalaloch. Kalaloch consists of a Ranger Station and small Visitor Center, park buildings, Kalaloch Lodge and Mercantile, Lodge office and staff housing, and Kalaloch Campground. The Lodge has a restaurant and the store carries basic necessities.

There was once a primitive town here before World War II but the war changed that when the Coast Guard took over and insisted all of the civilians leave – for their safety. Bill Becker, who owned what is today Kalaloch Lodge, joined the Coast Guard so he and his family could stay in the area. At that time, the Mercantile was a gas station and the local post office. Today the Kalaloch area is considered to be part of Forks, Washington, even though it is in a different county.

There is often confusion on how to pronounce the name. It sounds like CLAY-lock. The confusion isn't surprising since it was a mistake of spelling – several times. The most likely origin of the name is a combination of two words in Chinook Jargon, a trade language used by the coastal tribes who all have different languages of their own. In Chinook, _klah_ means 'to be free' and _hahlakl_ means 'open'. As with many native words, it has a double meaning. The area around Kalaloch creek is flat and sandy and free of large rocks, with the exception of the Kalaloch Rocks cluster, which was probably still part of the cliff when the first people named the area. It was an open place that was safe to land their 60 foot long, wooden, ocean-going canoes. It's why the area earned the nickname 'Safe Harbor'. This area was also traditionally used by three different tribes but not owned by any one tribe so it was a free and open place to gather, kind of like a park, which it has become today.

In 1931, when the Highway 101 ribbon cutting took place at the Kalaloch mercantile, a paddle was given to a local chief and the name of this place was spelled Kalalock. I've seen many old photographs that have the name printed on the bottom of the picture. A rather prolific photographer named Ellis took many photos in this area in the 1930s to the 1950s and his hand writing may have led to the change of the final letter from a K to an H. The silent A is a little bit more of a mystery. Having heard a native speaker pronounce the Chinook words, I discovered that the KL sound is guttural. There's really no equivalent in the English language so the English speaking people who heard it, may have added the A. If you really want a good imitation of that first syllable, try saying the word 'claw' while coughing hard.

### Staying at Kalaloch

Now days, very few people live year-round in this remote corner of the Park. It's generally limited to a handful of National Park staff and the permanent staff of Kalaloch Lodge. It's a very quiet place in winter. That changes dramatically between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Visitors from all over the world come to stay at Kalaloch for a few days. Many have been married on the beach and many more come each year for family reunions. I've met some people who have been coming to Kalaloch for over 50 years.

There are only a few places for visitors to stay. The Main Campground has about 140 sites, most of which are small, dating back to earlier days when the average camper only had a tent. There are very few spots that can fit the new super-sized motorhomes. There's no electricity or water at the sites but there are flush toilets and drinking water at the bathrooms. During the summer months when South Beach is open, most of the big rigs are sent down there because of the bigger spaces that are available. South Beach has flush toilets but no drinking water. The Main Campground has reservations during the summer and it's always best to go on-line six months ahead of time to insure you get a spot.

For folks who prefer a room, the Lodge offers a wide range of cabins and a few motel-like rooms. They also have a nice restaurant that has become very earth-friendly. But that's all there is in that area. The next closest place to stay is a considerable distance to the north or south.

### Exploring the Beach

Once you get to Kalaloch, don't plan on much contact with the outside world. There's no internet, no television, and very limited cell phone reception. Kalaloch is all about the beach and coastal rainforest. The Kalaloch Strip is about ten miles long from South Beach at the south end to Ruby Beach at the north end. The Strip is the southern most part of Olympic National Park's coastal strip and it's less than a mile wide in most places. In that ten miles, the beach undergoes dramatic changes from soft sand, to gravel, to wave washed rocky shores. Each type of beach has its own unique characteristics.

As you enter the Park from the south end, South Beach Campground is the first place you can really pull off. If the campground isn't open, there is still a wide enough place to park by the upper picnic area. The beach here is usually steep, composed of large, very flat rocks, and covered in huge logs. There are a few different trails down to the water. They change at the bottom every year as winter waves rearrange the furniture of huge beach logs.

Beach 1 is the next set of pullouts. It has a steep trail to the beach and it can be challenging to climb over the log pile at the bottom to get to the ocean. There is also a short loop through the burl forest. The beach here is similar to South Beach. There are huge piles of logs and flat rocks.

Beach 2, about a mile down the road, has a long pullout on the east side of the road and only a small space on the west side. It has a much shorter trail and the beach is not as steep but there are still lots of logs and those nifty flat rocks.

Once you get to Kalaloch, there is access by the Lodge and at the Main Campground day-use parking area. The beach here is very different. It's much flatter and looks more like the sandy beach that is often seen farther to the south. You'll still find the flat rocks right along the cliff but they aren't as pronounced. The logs here change from one year to the next. Sometimes you have to climb over a mountain of them while other years, there are few to be seen.

Visitors who come to the Lodge Beach to see Kalaloch Rocks are sometimes disappointed and at other times, frustrated that they are even on the Park map. You can't even see them at high tide and the water never fully retreats to allow you to walk out to them. They are a great little spot for birds to sit when the tide is not covering them and as the tide comes in, especially with a winter storm surge behind it, they can make a spectacular splash.

An older couple who'd been coming here most of their lives told me that the rocks used to be a lot closer to the shoreline. In a very old historic print, you can just barely see them - buried in the actual cliff. An old road used to wind down the cliff face right around them. The rocks haven't move. The coastline has! Erosion happens.

North of Kalaloch, the beach undergoes yet another change as large rocks appear on the coast beginning at Browns Point. Beach 3 is the north access to the Point but don't try crossing that stretch going south at high tide! The waves crash on very slippery rock making it a spectacular sight but a dangerous place to be.

The next two major beach accesses are probably the most popular, especially at low tide. Beach 4 and Ruby Beach both offer access to rocky tidepools when the tide is low. The two beaches have very different compositions. Beach 4 is very large grained sand to gravel while Ruby Beach is smaller grained sand toward the tide line with the larger flat rocks closer to shore.

The rocks and tidepools are so special that I'll give them their own section a little later. The most important thing to remember in exploring any beach is the tide. Tide tables are posted on many area bulletin boards and the Lodge hands out small tide tables to guests.

### Destruction Island

Destruction Island can be seen from the coast pretty much everywhere in the Kalaloch area. It has a lighthouse on it and many people ask if there is a way to get out there. However, there is no way to get out to Destruction Island. The lighthouse is no longer lit and it hasn't been manned since 1969.

Destruction Island Lighthouse was built between 1888 and 1891 after several ships found the island the hard way. The 94 foot tall tower is made of bricks incased in a metal sleeve for protection from the elements. It was painted white to keep the metal from rusting but now that it has been left on its own, there's no way to tell how long the white tower will remain white.

When first built, it boasted the finest Fresnel lens ever constructed. The lens had over 1000 prisms and 24 bull's-eyes. It was lit by five oil-burning wicks, which consumed ten gallons of oil every night that had to be carried up 115 steps. By 1969, electric power lines had finally made it to Kalaloch and the wicks were replaced with bulbs and the lighthouse was automated. The beautiful old lens was replaced in 1995 with a more efficient lamp powered by solar panels. The original lens is on display at the Maritime Museum in Westport, Washington. In 2008, the Coast Guard made the decision to let the light go dark as it was no longer needed and going out to the island disturbed the local residents - all very wild.

Destruction Island is part of the Quileute Needles Wildlife Refuge, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, and Olympic National Park. It is so well protected for a good reason. The glacial topped island is vital nesting habitat for rare seabirds like the Rhinoceros Auklet as well as the Tufted Puffin and Black Oyster Catcher. These birds don't appreciate disturbances while tending their young. The long fingers of durable sandstone that stretch out from around the island create shallow bays where kelp forests thrive, seals frolic, and sea otters float.

The ironic twist to Destruction Island comes in the form of non-native European rabbits leftover from the lighthouse days. These burrowing rabbits endanger the Rhinoceros Auklet nest burrows, destabilize the glacial sediments by chewing the vegetation down to the ground, and draw eagles to the island, which scares Tufted Puffins off their nests. Researchers studying the decline of the sea birds are puzzling over how to rid the island of these rabbits without endangering the birds. Fibonacci wins again.

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## Chapter 2 - Where is the Rainforest?

When someone asks me how far it is to the rainforest I shake my head. If you're at Kalaloch, you've been in the rainforest for awhile. The temperate rainforest begins south around the Lake Quinault area and north around the Sol Duc Road turn-off. This natural bowl, created by the ridgeline of the Olympic Mountains, traps much of the precipitation coming in off the Pacific Ocean. The distribution of rainfall is not equal but is determined by elevation and angle. As a general rule, the higher in elevation on the western slopes of the Olympic Mountains, the greater the precipitation. If the angle of a ridge faces the flow of onshore air, that side of the ridge will be wetter than the other side behind it. The relatively close distance between the Pacific Ocean to the tallest mountains means that a lot of rain falls between the shoreline at Kalaloch and the nearly 8,000 feet tall peaks of Mount Olympus. On average, Kalaloch gets about 100 inches a year while over 180 inches fall at the higher elevations of Mount Olympus. That's a lot of rain.

Some people are a little confused when they hear the term 'rainforest' because they tend to think of lush tropical vegetation with brightly colored birds and monkeys swinging through the trees. That's not the kind of rainforest that you find in the Pacific Northwest. Here we have temperate rainforest. The trees are huge, mainly Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock, and Big Leaf Maple. The trees are often covered by thick layers of shaggy mosses and lichens. There are very few animals to be seen unless you know where to look and what you're looking for.

Visitors can also be confused by the labels that are printed on the Park map. There are several road entrances to the rainforest, some of which are easier to access than others, but they all go to the same rainforest.

The most popular entrance to the upland rainforest is the Hoh River Valley. It's about one hour north of Kalaloch. There is a Visitor Center there dedicated to the rainforest and a couple of loop trails with narrative signs. I always encourage folks to do both of the loops because they are different even though they are quite close together. The Hall of Mosses trail goes up about 50 feet in elevation to show how the rainforest looks when it is only disturbed by rare lightening strikes. The Spruce Nature Trail winds around Taft Creek and along the Hoh River. Baby salmon are often visible from the bridges. This trail shows how the rainforest changes with the influence of the river.

The Hoh River Trail also begins from this point and offers an 18 mile hike through the wilderness to Mount Olympus. This isn't a day hike by any means and parts of the trail are challenging. You should always talk to a back country ranger or the Wilderness Information Center in Port Angeles before attempting this hike. However, there are some shorter day hikes – you can think of them as there-and-back-again hikes – that offer a small glimpse into the beauty of the wilderness. It's three miles out to the waterfalls, four miles out to the grove of ancient cedars, and five miles out to a spectacular view of Mount Carrie at Five Mile Island. The turn around point is up to you but you want to be off the trail before dark for safety.

Lake Quinault also has an upland rainforest loop trail on the North Shore Road as well as the largest living Western Red Cedar tree that has been found to date. If you're hiking up to see the tree, be prepared. It is a short trail, about a quarter mile long, but it gains some elevation and can be challenging for weak ankles and knees. It is well worth the hike. To many, the tree looks dead because the foliage is so high up but it's still alive at over 2,000 years in age. A little farther down the road is the Kestner Homestead Visitor Center. The Maple Glade Loop offers an easy, short hike through the moss-draped maples. The longer Kestner Homestead Trail highlights the history of the European settlers in the area.

The other spot on the map is the Queets Valley. While this is a beautiful place, it's not for the casual visitor. It is accessed by an eighteen mile drive off the main road, half of which is gravel. RVs and trailers are not allowed and there's at least one hill that gives me butterflies even with four-wheel drive. If you are the adventurous type and want to go see it, remember that you are on your own in the wilderness. This is not a front country area and there are no helpful rangers there if you run into trouble!

Many people have seen the pictures of the Sam's Loop Trail but this is not well marked and the elk often reroute the trail without telling anyone. People have gotten lost there. The main trail is across the Queets River, which must be forded. This can be challenging at best and down right dangerous and impossible at its worst. Please use common sense when considering an adventure in the wilderness.

If you're visiting Kalaloch, you have a unique chance to see coastal rainforest, which is very different from the upland form. There are no maples here and mosses are different, generally closer to the trunk and branches of the trees. There are also burls on some of the Sitka Spruce along the coast that you won't see farther inland.

The Kalaloch area is very narrow so hiking in the coastal rainforest is limited. There is a short nature trail but it doesn't have any signage. It is located across Highway 101 from the main campground and is less than a mile long. There is also a short trail at Beach 1 called the burl trail. This very short trail winds through the spruce forest in an area where the burls are very common.

Kalaloch's big red cedar grove is located about six miles north of the Lodge and Visitor Center. There is a quarter mile gravel road off of Highway 101 that ends in a looped parking area. It's big enough to park an RV but the road itself is narrow, usually one lane wide with a few places wide enough to pause for on coming traffic.

The Kalaloch Cedar, sadly, has recently collapsed. Care should be taken when accessing this area as the remaining portion of the tree has several other trees growing with it. Red cedars, unlike most other trees, can die in sections because the wood is naturally rot-resistant. The Kalaloch Cedar originally lost its top in the Cascadia earthquake of 1700 and had numerous other trees and shrubs growing on it. When red cedars self-top, the branches below the break will turn and grow upward. You can see this occurring in many red cedar trees. These large, upward-turned branches are called reiterations. Kalaloch Cedar was a national grand champion tree from 1955 to 1977. It will be sorely missed by many.

If you walk back along the rest of the trail, you'll discover an entire grove of very old Western Red Cedars, including the Gremlin, which got its name from the unusual twist at its base. Be prepared for muddy conditions on the back trail, even in summer.

All temperate rainforest in Olympic National Park shares some common features. There are a lot of different levels to the growth from huge trees that can be more than 200 feet tall to younger trees that average 50 to 60 feet tall, to bushes around 20 feet tall, down to the very small plants on the forest floor that are only inches tall. The greatest diversity of species belongs to the epiphytes - small plants like mosses, lichens, and liverworts, that grow on other plants. There's a wide range in age of the trees from seedlings to ancient ancestors over a thousand years old.

There are also a lot of fallen trees. This is a truly natural world where the balance of life and death is left alone. The only really mature tree is one that has completely decomposed and returned its stored nutrients back to the ecosystem.

### Mosses, Lichens, and Liverworts

One of the defining traits of the temperate rainforest is the amazing diversity of epiphytes. These tiny plants seem to grow on every available surface. To the average observer, they can be challenging to tell apart and there are so many different species that huge volumes have been written to identify the individual mosses, lichens, and liverworts.

Just telling the three different broad categories apart requires a keen eye. Lichens are the easiest. A lichen is a dynamic duo composed of an interlinked partnership between an algae and a fungus. The fungus side usually supplies the support while the algae supplies the food. The algae side is generally a shade of green, though not always. The green color may look more gray in some species. The fungus side is usually white but may not always be visible.

As a good example, you often see the long, light-green, stringy masses hanging from the tree branches. Looking closely, the delicate mass seems to be made of thread-like split hairs. This type of lichen, which can be numerous different species, covers the fungus partner completely in a sheath of algae.

One of my favorite kinds of lichen is called Frog Pelt. It has a dark gray-green wrinkled top surface and a spiky white bottom surface. It's easy to see both partners because they live on different sides of the structure. Frog Pelt can be found amid moss patches on the ground or on fallen logs.

Mosses and liverworts are hard to tell apart and there are a multitude of different species. These tiny plants have an important difference from their larger companions in that they don't have roots. They anchor themselves with microscopic tendrils called rhizoids. Nutrients and water are absorbed directly through their leaves. They are air plants, not really needing soil at all. I've had one clump of moss, blown out of a tree in my yard, for over a year. It just needs to be out in the rain.

Each epiphyte species has a preferred place to live. Some only grow in one kind of tree, others on rotting wood, and some only on rock or bare ground. Epiphytes generally don't take anything from their hosts except a place to perch. As a matter of fact, it can be the opposite, especially in the temperate rainforest.

One big tree specialist, who has spent time studying the mosses high in the canopy, showed me the most amazing thing. A branch that had been knocked down during a wind storm revealed an amazing connection between the tree and its mossy draperies. The moss had been there so long that a thick layer of dirt had built up under it. The tree had grown roots - from its branches - into the thick moss mat. The researcher assured me that this was common practice for all of the large rainforest trees.

The epiphytes allow the large trees to survive the extreme dry conditions during the summer months by absorbing moisture blown in off the ocean in the form of fog and low clouds. A moss mat can hold a lot of water. These mossy patchworks are living sponges that the tree taps into for moisture.

Another unique ability that the mosses, liverworts, and lichens have is their tolerance to drought. If they don't get enough moisture, they go into a dormant phase until moisture is available again. I was surprised just how fast moss can revive. I'm particularly fond of the fluffy looking sphagnum moss that creates a light green, thick carpet across patches of the forest floor. I knelt once to take a closer look at a dry patch and the top of my water bottle came off, spilling some on the sphagnum. Within just a few minutes, many of the tiny plants looked fresh and new. I felt bad for teasing them out of their dormancy.

### Nurse Logs

One of the most prevalent structures in the temperate rain forest is the nurse log. As you walk through the rainforest, look around for baby trees. Because of the unusual weather conditions, baby trees have some challenges to overcome. This rainforest gets an average of 100 inches of rain on the coast to over 180 inches in the higher valleys each year, however, most of that falls from October to May. During the rainy season, any seeds that fall to the bare patches on the forest floor, like pathways, are quickly washed away.

During the summer months, the growing season for trees, there is very little rain so any surviving seeds that fell on plant material that dries out, won't survive either. The best place for the next generation is on the back of the recently past one. The big trees die and eventually fall. They become covered with mosses, which become vital to the survival of the next generation of the rainforest.

Not only does moss hold amazing amounts of water, but the tree rotting under the moss is a natural sponge. The covering of moss prevents water from easily evaporating from the rotting log. The mosses also have a bacterial partner that, while breaking down the wood under the moss, produces nitrogen. This chemical is essential to the growth of the baby trees but it's very water-soluble and gets rinsed out of the soil quickly in the winter. The moss traps the nitrogen and prevents it from running off. Moss also traps wind-blown seeds and keeps them in place long enough for them to germinate and dig in.

As the trees grow up on their straight and narrow ancestors, the old decaying wood eventually rots completely away leaving a noticeable row of trees, called a colonnade, which can have very long roots supporting them, a condition called stilting. Almost every species of large tree in the rainforest begins its life on the back of a fallen ancestor.

### Really Big Trees

The still-living ancients can grow to immense sizes. Some of these trees are big because they are very old while others are big because they are very lucky. The lucky trees grow along rivers where they have water during the dry summers and open space for sunlight. For other trees that don't live in optimum areas, it takes a long time to get big. Many times, as you walk the trails in the rainforest, you encounter trees that have fallen across the trail and been cut to allow access. Pause for a moment and look at the rings of the tree.

Tree rings are a permanent record of the tree's life history. They record seasonal variations that help scientists understand the changes in annual rainfall from one year to the next. The lighter colored bands are summer growth and are lighter in color because the cells are much larger. The darker, narrow bands are the winter growth. Trees still manage a little growth in winter but the cells are much smaller and tightly packed so the wood appears dark.

If you are in an area around Kalaloch away from the creek and you count the rings on a cut log, what you'll discover is that it takes about one hundred rings to make one foot of tree girth. When you consider the dimensions of some of the trees here, it can be humbling.

In the coastal rainforest, it's easy to identify the species of all the big trees. It startles many first time visitors when they learn that there are only four different species to choose from on the coast.

The first step is to look at the green part of the tree. If it's a leaf, you're looking at a Red Alder. If it looks like a sharp spike, it's a Sitka Spruce. If it has flat, soft needles, it's a Western Hemlock. People are often challenged to describe the foliage of the Western Red Cedar. It has scaly needles that look almost like a feathery leaf or a fern.

Sometimes you can't see the needles or leaves, either because they are too high up or the trees are so close together that you can't tell where one ends and another begins. The bark of each tree is also unique. Red Alder bark looks smooth and often white. Some folks mistake this tree for Birch. The bark is actually dark gray. The white covering is a form of lichen that only grows on an alder.

Sitka Spruce, especially the large ones, have a scale-like bark. Kids often describe them as potato-chip trees. These scales pop off as the tree grows and collect around the base of the tree. The trunk may have long white streaks of sap running down the side.

The Western Hemlock has shallow grooves that generally run vertically along the trunk. It's one of the most common trees on the coast once you move away from the shore, which is dominated by Sitka Spruce.

The Western Red Cedar has long stripy bark that made this tree an important resource for the native people of the area. The bark is very fibrous. It was harvested to make everything from baskets to clothing.

All of these trees have some things in common. First off, they all have cones. People usually don't think of a leafed tree as having a cone but the Red Alder does. It the spring it grows a long catkin, which is full of pollen. Many people in the Pacific Northwest consider the Red Alder a nuisance because of this. The pollen coats surfaces and the catkins clog storm drains. The true purpose of the pollen is to fertilize the cones of the tree, which look like small green balls at first but become little brown cones by fall. These tiny cones have a different look to them because the seed sheaths are perpendicular to the cone stem.

The Western Red Cedar has even smaller, and more unique cones, which develop from special scales on certain outer branches. These tiny cones usually disintegrate before they hit the ground so most people never see them. If you look carefully at the outer branches of a red cedar, you might be able to see what looks like brown shag clinging to some of the green fronds. That's the cone clusters.

The Western Hemlock has a small, oblong cone just a little bigger than the Alder's but it has a more characteristic cone shape, with the sheaths that protect the seeds layered along the surface from the stem to the tip. The hemlock makes up for the small size of the cone by producing prolific quantities.

Sitka Spruce have large, often sticky cones. The Douglas Tree Squirrel has a special relationship to Sitka Spruce because of this. These busy balls of fur are drawn to the sweet sticky sap that covers the cones. They nip the cones off the trees and collect them at the bottom. The squirrel holds the cone like corn on the cob and begins stripping off the sheaths, licking off the sap, and dropping the sheaths in huge mounds below their feeding perch. They don't eat many of the tiny seeds, being far more interested in the sweet sap. The squirrels end up freeing the seeds from the cones and those that fall on a mossy spot have a chance to become a new tree.

Another thing that all of these trees have in common is a necessity to protect themselves. Consider the wood in your own home. What happens to it if it stays wet for an extended period of time? It rots. All of these trees in the coastal rainforest spend half the year in soaking wet conditions. Rot is the single most common threat to rainforest trees.

Western Red Cedar, being the longest lived at over two thousand years, have the most efficient method. They produce a natural oil, which prevents water from entering the wood since oil and water don't mix. This is also why the tree was such an important resource for the early humans who lived in this extremely damp location. The wood makes water-proof homes, boats, and clothing.

Sitka Spruce comes in second place in the age contest with some ancients living over fifteen hundred years. To keep moisture out and prevent rot, the tree produces large quantities of sap but it takes a lot of water to do this. Sitka Spruce are water hogs with the average tree needing a minimum of 80 inches of rain a year, making this tree a true rainforest indicator.

Western Hemlock is in third place with the oldest trees around eight hundred years of age. This tree has a very unique method. It uses a chemical called tannin, which is a form of acid, to naturally preserve the inner wood of the tree. The inner portion of a tree is no longer growing. Its primary function is structural. Only the very outer layer of wood right under the bark is technically alive. This living layer is call cambium. Nutrients and water move through this layer and supply the entire tree with all its chemical needs.

The Western Hemlock literally tans the inner support structure of its trunk. It produces so much tannin that the tannic acid often seeps into the ground and from there, into local waterways. You are probably familiar with tannic acid, even if you don't realize it. It's what makes tea brown and certain wines dark in color. It is also responsible for the brownish yellow color of Kalaloch Creek and other local creeks and streams. When the current is strong enough, it can even froth the tannin into a brownish foam.

The last contestant in the age category is the Red Alder at less than one hundred years on average. These trees are generally restricted to areas near fresh water or freshly disturbed areas like clear cuts. They are one of the only trees in the rainforest that don't need a nurse log. These trees have a high iron content in their chemistry. This is where they get the 'red' in their title. When recently-dead Red Alder wash up on the beach and the wood is exposed to air, it turns bright red from the oxidation of the iron. The iron content also seems to hold the forces of rot off long enough for these trees to produce sufficient offspring before they topple.

These baby alders can grow anywhere because of a special gift from their parents. Every alder is equipped with a partner - a bacteria named Frankia. This bacteria takes up residence in little nodules in the roots of an alder tree. Even single-leaved saplings have them. They come as part of the package. This bacteria allows the tree to pull inorganic nitrogen out of the air and process it. This type of plant is called a nitrogen fixer. In many places, it acts as a pioneer species, fixing and holding nitrogen in the soil, giving other tree species the needed boost in a nitrogen-deficient landscape. Look around the base of alders and you're likely to see baby trees from the other rainforest species, especially hemlock.

### Burls

One of my favorite questions people ask me about the trees in the Kalaloch area concerns the burls on the Sitka Spruce. These large protuberances can be quite striking if you've never seen them before. One visitor wanted to know if the tree was pregnant while another wondered if the burls contained a bug colony. If you've been to the Redwoods, the first idea would be reasonable as redwood trees do have the ability to sprout new offspring from their much smaller burls. The second idea may come from an old sign on the loop trail at Beach 1 that states a bud worm is a possible cause.

The real cause of the burls along the coast has to do with their unique bark and their proximity to the ocean. Sitka Spruce need a lot of rain to produce sap. If for some reason they don't get enough, they can't produce enough sap to caulk around all the bark scales.

Along the coast, winter storms with strong wind gusts can drive salt spray up to a mile inland. Any gap in a tree's armor can allow that salt access to the cambium layer - the growing part of a tree. If you've ever eaten a lot of salty foods, you've probably experienced the same thing that these Sitka Spruce have - they get thirsty.

The twist is that these storms occur when it's cold outside. It takes warmth for the tree to pull water up the trunk. Instead, the salt pulls water in through the same gap it entered and causes increased growth in just the area around the gap. The cells are able to grow big, like they do in summer. You get a bump forming, which makes it harder for the scales to lie flat, increasing the likelihood of more salt finding a way in. The burl grows. Some burls can be two or three times the diameter of the rest of the tree.

Burls may actually be beneficial to these wind-blown giants on the coast. Most of the burls tend to form lower down on the tree's truck or exposed roots. The increased girth of the tree makes it less likely that the tree will snap under the pressure of the wind and adds weight at the base.

Sitka Spruce, like many rainforest tree species, tend to be self-topping and self-limbing. That means larger branches will break off rather than endanger the entire tree. Directly on the cliff tops, the strong winter winds can cause an even more dramatic effect called flagging. The branches all look as if they are forever flowing away from the howling ocean gales.

### Shrub Trees and Berries Bushes

Below the tall trees of the coastal rainforest are an assortment of shrub trees and bushes. Almost all of these have some kind of fruit. Not all of them are edible so you have to be very cautious if you get a craving to taste anything. The best rule of thumb to use in this respect is, if you don't know for sure what the plant is, don't eat it. Some fruits can make you sick while others could pose a far more serious risk. The Park Service does allow you a small taste but they ask that you limit this to a handful. These berries are the food source for many birds and animals at Kalaloch.

There are several smaller shrub trees that don't get much taller than fifty feet. These are cascara, native crab apple, and elderberry. The fruit of these should really not be eaten, although some local friends of mine claim the tiny crab apples make an interesting jelly in the fall.

Most of the lower story plants are bushes. There are the obvious blackberries and their cousin, the salmonberry, which are safe to eat. Both are members of the Rubes family and have the characteristic bubbly-looking berry with lots of tiny seeds.

The salmon berry is one of the earliest berries that bloom and produce fruit in the rainforest. They have pink flowers that become yellowish-orange fruit. The trick is to gamble with the birds and wait until the berries take on a rosy hue. That's when they become sweet. Most of the blackberries in the Kalaloch area are invaders from other parts of the country. These invasive species have pushed out most of the smaller native blackberries. They have a large white to pinkish bloom that becomes a big, almost-black berry. They are most common on the road sides. There's a nice patch on the trail between the Lodge and the Park Service Visitor Center.

The Pacific Northwest is known for its huckleberries and Kalaloch is no exception. Some red huckleberry bushes can tower up to twenty feet tall. Red huckleberry has small, soft, oval-shaped leaves and very green stems. The bright red berries usually don't get very big and have a tiny dimple opposite the stem, just like their cousin, the blueberry. There are even a few wild blueberries in the area, if you know where to look. The other common member of the family is the evergreen huckleberry. Its leaves are also oval-shaped with a point but are harder, thicker, and feel waxy to the touch. Unlike red huckleberry and wild blueberry, the evergreen huckleberry doesn't loose its leaves in the wintertime. It has plump dark purple berries that usually begin to ripen in August.

The other evergreen bush is salal. It has large waxy leaves and grows in dense packets throughout the rainforest. Along the coast, I've found bushes that tower over me at more than fifteen feet. The flowers that appear in late spring look like little white up-side-down pots all growing in a row. It doesn't produce a true berry but over time, the flower sepals become fleshy and turn dark purple. Many local people eat salal berries, just as the native people have for a long time. I've found the trick is to roll the fruit around on your tongue to squeeze out the juice, and then spit the seeds and hull back into the area around the mother plant. This is a traditional way to ensure the future of this vital species, and mimics the way birds replant the seeds after digesting the fruit they eat.

Directly on the coast is a bush that is generally less common inland. This eight to ten foot tall shrub is called Black Twinberry. This woody member of the honeysuckle family gets its name from the double stemmed fruit that begins with yellow, tube-shaped flowers with deep red bracts. The flowers are replaced by two dark purple fruits in late summer. These are not edible to humans and can make you quite sick if you manage to get beyond the bitter taste. The ripe berries do draw one of my favorite visitors to the Kalaloch area - the cedar wax-wings. These tan birds with their turned up top knots and black eye patches are a delight to watch in late summer as they hop from one twinberry to the next, gobbling up the fruit. This bird species seems to have a stomach for toxic berries. It's one of the only birds I've ever seen eating mountain ash berries.

### Flowers

There are many kinds of non-woody, flowering and non-flowering plants in the Kalaloch area. Some belong there while others are invasive species that have been brought in with people, either intentionally or accidentally.

The most common questions I get concerning plants involve those that people see on the roadside as they drive to Kalaloch. In spring, the roadsides outside the park are covered in bright yellow bushes. The Park actively works to suppress this particular invader known as Scotch Broom. It was originally brought to the Pacific Northwest as a garden ornamental but it has taken over vast areas. It gets quite large and because it's a nitrogen fixer, can grow just about anywhere. It overshadows smaller plants, forcing native species out of their habitat.

Another noticeable invader that manages to sneak into the Park, even under the watchful eye of the invasive plant crew, is quite pretty so it's probably another garden escapee, but also dangerous. Foxglove grows purple to white tube-like bells on straight tall stalks. It has soft hairy leaves. The scientific name should be a warning to anyone with a heart condition that it shouldn't be touched - Digitalis. This poisonous plant contains cardiac glycosides that can affect muscle tissue and circulation. The bigger problem in the rainforest is that the foxglove competes with Fireweed, a plant commonly eaten by the Roosevelt Elk. The fireweed blooms later in the season and has smaller bright pink flowers. By late summer, the flowers fade to be replaced by fluffy, white seeds.

Along the roadside near Kalaloch Lodge we see a late summer invader that was probably part of a garden in the past. Birds-foot trefoil, a member of the pea family, has a yellow flower on knee-high foliage. It seems to be limited to the drainage ditch and since it hasn't expanded its territory, has mostly gone unnoticed.

The native flowers of the area are just as impressive as the invaders. My personal favorite is one seldom seen by seasonal visitors because it's usually done blooming before the summer crowds come to Kalaloch. If you happen to be visiting in the spring, look for these foot tall bright yellow blooms that surround yellow fuzzy rods about the size of a fat hotdog. You probably don't want to smell them, however, as they live up to their name - Skunk Cabbage.

One has to wonder why a flower would smell so bad! It actually has to do with the time of year that it blooms. The bright yellow spikes push their way out of puddles in late March and early April. Most flowers smell good to attract pollinating insects like bees, however, this early in the season, the bees haven't started work yet. The skunk cabbage needs to smell bad to coax one of the rainforest's most dedicated workers to come for a visit - the banana slug.

The first time I watched a baby banana slug make its way up the stamen of a skunk cabbage I was captivated. It was a long climb for the inch long baby and it seemed disappointed when it discovered it had been tricked by the smelly plant. As it crawled back down, it carried pollen trapped in its slime. Not seeming to have learned its lesson, the baby slug tried a different flower, carrying the captured pollen along for the ride and ensuring the pollination of the skunk cabbage.

You'll find them in damp corners in the campground and along the edges of the nature trail. By the beginning of summer, the yellow sheaths have faded and the central rod has lost the tiny fuzzy flowers and turned green. The green, bumpy 'hotdogs on a stick' are surrounded by enormous leaves that look more like something you'd expect to see in a tropical rainforest. As the summer wears on, the fruit matures into something that resembles a green corn-on-the-cob. These seeds are ripe by the end of summer and a timeless partnership emerges in the form of a colorful blue bird with a pointed black cap and a cheeky attitude.

The Steller's Jay manages to perch on the narrow stem and gobbles as many of the fat juicy seeds as it can hold. As it flies away, it deposits the remains of previous meals in the damp soils where the skunk cabbage grows, ensuring the future of this beautiful, but smelly spring plant. I'm always bothered by the careless visitor who destroys the seed heads because, not only does it limit the snacking potential for the Steller's Jay, but it endangers the future generations of the plant.

In late springtime, the rainforest rolls out the white carpet. Take a walk down the burl trail at Beach 1 in late spring and be prepared for an incredible sight! The forest floor will be covered with blooming False Lily-of-the-valley. Short stalks of tiny white flowers rise above the dark green, heart-shaped leaves. In smaller patches, the tiny five-petal flowers of Redwood Sorrel gently bob above the three-leafed plant, often mistaken for shamrocks or clover. These two shade-tolerant plants are the most common found in the area.

By summer, the flowers of the False Lily-of-the-valley become golden berries, which turn a speckled red by fall. These should not be eaten! While they won't kill you, they could make you quite sick. The leaves, however, are one of nature's Band-Aids. If you get a shallow cut or burn, you can wrap one of these heart-shaped leaves around the injury. I usually steep then in warm water first to activate the chemical in them. Not only is it soothing, but shallow cuts tend to heal faster. Please don't take what you don't need. Once cut, the effects of the leaf diminish.

Another cluster of delicate white flowers on a long stem belongs to Foamflower. The flower stalks are slender and sway above the pointy, three-spiked leaves. A larger cousin, Fringecup, has longer stems with fragrant, frilly, white, cup-shaped flowers that dangle from the stem. They bloom just a little later in the summer and I almost always see them on the trail at Beach 4.

Not all flowers are so easy to see. The small, greenish-white, bell-shaped flowers of Clasping Twistedstalk hang down under the oblong, ribbed leaves of this unusual waist-high plant. What really makes this plant stand out is the way the leaves seem to wrap around the main stem of the plant while the stem bends at a different angle at each intersection. By late summer, berries dangle from the plant, tempting short children, who need to be watched carefully around these yellow, then red to purple orbs. Just a few berries will cause a serious stomach ache!

Some of the small white flowers come in larger packages that make them stand out in a crowd. It also helps that they grow on very tall plants. These plants begin to emerge in spring from what looks like the husk of corn on a prickly hollow tube. Even after the stem has emerged, the new branches from the main stem look like their growing out of corn husks, too. The leaves of the tallest variety, which is called Cow Parsnip, look similar to a giant six-inch, furry maple leaf. The tiny flowers grow in large round heads that rise above the rest of the plant, occasionally reaching over six feet tall.

A word of caution when observing this giant plant: the fuzzy, succulent stems contain a dangerous chemical to humans. If the sap, which contains furanocoumarins, gets on bare skin and is exposed to sunlight, a serious chemical burn can occur due to the phototoxicity of this material. Wash it off with soapy water as quickly as possible. Having had personal experience with this sap, I highly recommend caution! Avoid picking it at all costs and be conscious of the plant, which is common along many of the trails. Be especially careful if you have exposed skin.

That being said, this large member of the carrot family is a favorite for butterflies, bees, and many flying insects. I've even seen hummingbirds enjoying a sip from the tiny white flowers.

There are two related cousins often found in close proximity. Pacific Water-parsley is much smaller and fairly common along the creeks and roadside gullies. It has long toothy leaves that grow in a triangular shape along slender side stems that often end in a tight cluster of tiny white flowers. It doesn't have the same phototoxins as it's super-sized cousin but most plants in this family are poisonous if eaten, being closely related to the famous Poison-Hemlock that did in Socrates!

The rarest member of this family in the Kalaloch area is one of my favorites. Kneeling Angelica has a similar stalk like its larger cousin but much darker green, bent leaves. The flower clusters tend to be a little smaller but just as attractive to nectar-seeking flyers. The darker color adds another hue to the rich green palette. I almost always find them near the bottom of the Beach 4 trail.

As you get down to the beach, one of the rarest colors shows up - red. Keep an eye on the cliff faces for this bright red summer bloom. Appropriately named, Common Red Paintbrush looks like a red-dipped paintbrush with thin leaves growing on it. But here's the catch, the flower isn't red; it's greenish and looks like a slender tube encased by the bright red bracts that surround it. This is another favorite of the hummingbird, especially in late summer.

### Ferns and Horsetail

Not all plants on the forest floor have flowers. There are several common species of ferns in the Kalaloch area. Ferns are different from other plants because they don't reproduce with seeds. They make spores, which require a lot of water for germination. They don't have roots like seed-bearing plants, either.

I became more interested in these primitive plants after a particularly curious walk down the beach. A storm had blown in a lot of plant material onto the shore, including a strange object that looked like some kind of large tropical nut. Not sure what to make of it, I took the softball-sized dark brown object home, intending to look it up. The next day, while walking along a river that the rainy winter storm had swollen, I caught sight of something that looked similar. I carefully moved toward the edge, noting how the grasses and other plants were curling over the bank. The raging water had undercut the bank, eroding the soil and leaving the plants desperately clinging to their remaining neighbors.

Grabbing a still-firm tree trunk, I leaned over and caught sight of what the strange dark object was attached to. It wasn't a nut at all, but the rhizome of a sword fern. Considering the fast current, I had no doubt how the water-smoothed rhizome had ended up in the ocean. As I watched, the fern was dragged from the mat and pulled downstream. I carefully backed away from the edge, happy I hadn't joined it.

Sword Ferns can grow to three feet in height and nearly that in diameter. The fronds grow around a central base to form a large cluster. The fern gets its name from the shape of the individual leaflets, as they are long, pointy, and have what looks like a hilt at the base. The leaflets are durable and the top surface slightly waxy, like other evergreens in the rainforest. The bottom surface on many of the leaflets is covered in tiny bumps called sori, which start out green and turn brown as the spores ripen. Like other ferns, each spring the new shoots uncurl from the center of the plant, pushing old growth outward. The distinctive curl of the young fronds has earned them the name fiddleheads. Sword ferns are probably one of the most recognizable ferns in the wetter areas of the Pacific Northwest.

The next most common fern in the Kalaloch area is the Deer Fern. It has a central growth pattern as well with longer fronds of alternating oblong leaflets, void of sori, that tend to droop around the base of the fern. Growing out of the very center are different looking fronds with very thin leaflets only wide enough to contain the sori they hold. The lower fronds with the wider leaflets, are evergreen, while the center fronds, holding the sori, are not. After the sori have spored, the central fronds shrivel and turn brittle and brown.

Not all ferns in the Kalaloch area are evergreen. There are two common lacy ferns that can be easily confused with each other if you don't look closely. The Lady Fern, owing its name to the oval shape of the frond, has a more jagged appearance to the leaflets. If you can find the sori in the back, they are oblong and often curved. If you look at the way the stems of the leaflet clusters grow off the central stem, they are at a slight angle, which reminds me of window blinds that are half open.

The other fern is called the Spiny Wood Fern. The fronds are triangular and flat, like window blinds that are closed. The fronds are composed of leaflet clusters that look like small fronds themselves, giving the plant a fern-within-a-fern appearance. The sori are the final test as they are round.

The most unusual fern in the Kalaloch area is the Licorice Fern. In order to see these ferns, you have to look up. They like elevation. These arboreal ferns grow in the trees where their rhizome makes itself at home among the moss. They have leathery evergreen leaflets with round sori that get really fuzzy and brown when ripe. Directly along the ocean, the licorice fern's closest cousin, Leather Fern, interacts with salt spray, which toughen the leaflets.

There is one sporing vascular plant in the Kalaloch area that isn't a fern - Horsetail. This very primitive-looking plant pokes up in spring and unfurls pencil-lead thin branches. This remnant of the ancient past has one of the most unique features of any vascular plant in the area. It has silica in the stems, making them hard to the touch, and not something any animal with common sense would want to eat. The spores form in a tiny cone at the top of the plant. They are common all along the coast, especially in the sunny spots around the campgrounds and Lodge.

### Mushrooms

Mushrooms are not plants but belong to their very own group called fungi. They are essential members of the temperate rainforest community and they come in the most amazing variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Huge books have been devoted to the topic and there is no way that I could begin to describe the incredible diversity of fungi in the Kalaloch area.

Most visitors looking for mushrooms want something to add to their diet and the Park does allow for a small amount for personal consumption. That being said, I discourage anyone who isn't a real expert from sampling these fruiting bodies. Many mushrooms can be down right deadly! It can be hard to tell a safe mushroom from one that will kill you. The best bet is to get your mushrooms from a market and enjoy the beauty and elegance of wild mushrooms with a camera.

The most common mushrooms seen in the Kalaloch area come in two basic forms - shelf and cap. Shelf mushrooms are generally found on trees or fallen logs. As with any kind of fungi, the mushroom isn't really the organism, it's the fruit. The actual organism, called mycelium, is tucked away, either in wood or underground. Just as an interesting side note, the largest living single organism on earth is a honey mushroom that covers many acres down near Mount St. Helens.

Walk down the Kalaloch Nature Trail and you're sure to spot one of the most common shelf mushrooms in the area. Often called Artist Conches, these flat half circles protrude from many tree trunks. Some can reach amazing dimensions of several feet across. Please do not knock these mushrooms off the trees! These fruiting bodies are very different from soft-bodied mushrooms. They are hard to the touch, usually white to tan on the bottom and darker on the top. The mycelium has worked very hard to produce this structure and needs it, not only as a sporing platform, but also as an air conditioner.

Whenever I look up the trunk of a dead tree covered in shelf fungi, I'm reminded of a tall apartment building where every window has an air conditioner sticking out of it. The mycelium inside the dead tree is busy at work, breaking down the dead material so it can be reused by other living things in the rainforest. But this is hot work and causes the mycelium to sweat. When it gets warm outside, get close to one of the conches and look at the bottom surface. It will probably be covered with drops of water. As the water evaporates, it cools the surface of the shelf and that cooling effect is translated inside to the rest of the mycelium.

I occasionally see another member of this group hanging out on beach logs. It is smaller, thinner, and has a pretty pattern. Turkey Tail is another hard-bodied shelf fungus. It seems to be more salt-tolerant than its larger cousin.

Not all of the shelf fungi are hard. Walking down the Beach 4 trail one day, I noticed some soft-white Oyster Mushrooms clinging to a dead alder. They seldom stay for very long and fade away until the mycelium is ready to spore again.

The most colorful of the soft shelf fungi is Chicken-of-the-woods. There are several fine examples of this in the Kalaloch area. There are several stumps in the Main Campground that sprout the bright orange shelf fungi during the late summer. There's also one tree on the Kalaloch Nature Trail that has a large mycelium colony. This particular species is one of the favorite munchies for the banana slug, which has a passion for mushrooms, often leaving teeth marks behind as testimony.

There are many types of capped mushrooms that pop up around the area. One that really needs to be mentioned is the pretty bright red ones with white spots that show up in fall in the Main Campground on the A Loop side. These members of the Amanita genus are deadly to humans, being extremely poisonous. I've heard visitors complain because these mushrooms are there but people need to remember that the Park is a natural place and these mushrooms are part of that ecosystem. Besides, there's no way to tell how far the mycelium extends underground.

The other two common cap mushrooms groups are Russula and Boletus. Both of these types get quite large and are common, especially in the shady areas of the campground and along the sides of the nature trail. The Russula species have red or purple tops that look flat when fully extended. The Boletus species are white and plump.

I can only imagine how big some of their mycelium colonies are just based on the distribution of the fruiting bodies. Many seem to pop up out of no where overnight. Some of them are almost a foot in diameter. If you are lucky enough to see one of these giant fruiting bodies along the side of a trail, please leave it be. This is how the mycelium expands its colony. The fleshy fruiting bodies also provide food for a variety of animals from banana slugs to small rodents. They play a vital and necessary role in the ecology of the rainforest.

### Invisible Network

The most important fungi of all are the ones you never see. I had a rare opportunity to see this network up close when a large tree blew over in a windstorm. Because of the compact glacial soils and heavy rains in winter, these trees grow their roots outward from their base instead of downward. This allows them to extend their network of water intake. Trees will interlink their roots for added support. But this particular tree had lost one of its companions to rot the previous year and the strong winds pushed it over, pulling the shallow roots out of the ground, creating a fifteen foot root mass. The entire root system was only about one foot deep and beautifully interwoven.

Within the tree roots were numerous long white fibers that, on closer inspection, were composed of what looked like spider webs. These microscopically thin filaments belong to a group of fungi called mycorrhizal fungi.

The fibers grow on the root hairs of every plant in the rainforest. They help the plants absorb and process mineral nutrients from the soil. They can also act as emergency water storage in the event of a quick freeze. Water in the trunk of a tree is a bad thing if it gets too cold too fast. Water expands when it freezes and these large trees hold hundreds of gallons. In the winter, trees routinely drop most of their water into their roots. The fungi netting absorbs this water and holds it for the tree.

The mycorrhizal fungi link the entire rainforest into one massive network, allowing trees to share nutrients and water with other plants in their vicinity. One of the most amazing examples of this is a living stump. As odd as it sounds, even after being cut, the stump continues to grow new bark because it is supported by the network of trees around it. In a very real way, the temperate rainforest is a massive living organism composed of many different smaller units all linked by the mycorrhizal network.

* * *

## Chapter 3 - Where are all the Animals?

Many fellow visitors I've encountered have wondered about the seeming lack of wildlife in the Kalaloch area. This could be because they either aren't paying attention or they don't know what to look for. Most animals really don't want to be seen. I've learned to be quiet and sit still for long periods of time to allow the animals to return to their normal routines after my noisy passage to my resting spot.

There are so many small microhabitats around Kalaloch that the animal life is quite diverse. The cliff sides and beach logs provide shelter for numerous small furry creatures from chipmunks to short-tailed weasels. The little weasels are one of my favorites because they are so curious. I watched an older couple eat lunch while sitting on a beach log one day. A weasel, probably drawn by the smell of the food, crept quietly in and the around the logs and, when they weren't looking, made off with part of their sandwich. Lunchmeat certainly isn't a healthy diet for the weasel and I never share human food with any animal, but on occasion, they manage to steal things from unsuspecting humans.

The short-tailed weasel is actually an amazing hunter and will take on prey twice its size. I was astonished to watch a weasel pull a fat, full-grown hare across a parking lot once. Even a passing car didn't deter the persistent hunter.

I met one family who had an even more challenging issue. Apparently, during their stay, a weasel had gotten into their trailer. They had woken up with it curled up in their blankets! They asked the rangers for help but no one could coax the little critter out. Not having anywhere else to stay, they moved to the couch - and so did the weasel! Traps were set but the weasel didn't take the bait. After the third night, with the weasel joining them again, the couple was beside themselves. They had to leave the next day and they certainly didn't want to take the weasel home with them. I never did learn the fate of the lonely weasel but it taught me to pay attention to the spaces that animals might get into.

Many people run into trouble with animals in the campground and I have to admit, I've had my share of animal encounters there, too. One of the most horrific was the morning I discovered we had forgotten to dump the dishwater from the night before. I found a small jumping mouse had taken a swim and been unable to escape the pan. It had drown, much to my daughter's disgust.

One of the most challenging animals in the campground is the raccoon. You really can't leave anything with an odor outside of a vehicle or trailer. My sons discovered the hard way that not even a tent is secure from these black-faced bandits. The boys had smuggled a bag of chips to their tent to snack on over night. In the wee hours, our campsite was woken by a commotion as both boys panicked while the raccoon snuck back out through the zippered doorway it had opened, chip bag clenched in its teeth. These animals have no fear. I've had a raccoon steal an open bag of noodles from right beside me on a table while I was waiting for the water to boil.

It's not just human food the animals are interested in. Walking through the campground, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly either raccoons, or the crows and jays, can turn a campsite in-side-out. One family had begun unpacking bins but had been distracted by a neighbor. By the time they had returned, the birds had managed to open most of the bins and several smaller animals had helped themselves to dog food, shaving cream, and dish soap.

Another interesting encounter began early one morning when a camper rushed out of his trailer, gasping for breath. He'd heard what he thought was a mouse in the storage area under a bench. When he kicked the bench, something hissed and filled his trailer with a noxious odor. After gaining the help of a ranger, the trailer door was opened and an air horn was set off next the wall outside the bench. Within moments, a squat black animal with white spots came rolling out the door, shaking its head. I'd never seen a spotted skunk before, and I'll be quite happy if I never smell one again.

As visitors to this wild area, we have to remember that animals, by nature, are opportunistic. We don't want to endanger these creatures by feeding them human food, which their systems might not tolerate. It also makes them dependant on handouts, causing no end of trouble for campers, but could also cause starvation for that animal in the winter. We need to eat our food and each type of animal should eat their own.

### Lots of Bunnies but no Rabbits

One animal that almost every visitor to Kalaloch encounters is the bunny. These aren't rabbits but Snowshoe Hares. This surprised me the first time I learned about these prolific animals. They literally seem to be everywhere in the campground and around the Lodge cabins.

Unlike others of the same species that live where it snows, the Snowshoe Hares of Kalaloch don't turn white in the winter. It never gets cold enough to activate whatever mechanism causes the color change in others of the same species.

I've discovered these hares have little fear of humans. I was sitting around a campfire with some friends one night when one hopped right out and began nibbling grass only a few feet away from my feet. I sat very still, watching the hare eat. It did fine until one of our friends returned from walking her dog. The hare made a hasty retreat into the bushes that surrounded the campsite.

The hares are an important food source for many of the predatory hunters in the area. I've seen an eagle take one as well as a weasel. The most exciting hunter I've been lucky enough to see take a hare was a Fisher.

Fishers are large members of the weasel family. They are dark brown and have a pointed nose like their smaller weasel cousins but they are about the size of a river otter. They had been missing from Olympic National Park for a long time as they were hunted to extinction in the area for their thick, luxurious coats.

The Park Service studied the areas where the fishers used to live in the Park and realized this important predator's absence had allowed smaller animals, like mice and voles, to get out of hand. A few years ago, they reintroduced the fishers with ones caught in Canada. Apparently, some of the reintroduced fishers decided to travel around the Park and one of them found his way to Kalaloch.

I was shocked one late afternoon while walking the trail between the Lodge and Visitor Center to see a hare grabbed right off the trail in front of me. At first I thought it had been a domestic cat but as I rounded the corner, I caught site of the sleek, squat fisher disappearing with his dinner into the bushes behind the Lodge's employee housing.

Another odd animal that I at first mistook for a hare turned out to be quite a surprise. I had been driving back from Ruby Beach toward the campground when I saw what looked like a hare dragging a green branch across the road. I slowed down, curious to see what was going on and when I got close, realized it wasn't a hare at all. This odd rounded creature was a Pacific Water Shrew, one of the largest shrews in America. It pulled a sprig of Kneeling Angelica off into the ditch and disappeared. It was a truly rare sighting.

### Roosevelt Elk and Black-tailed Deer

The one animal that I really miss seeing in the Kalaloch area these days is the Roosevelt Elk. When I first began coming here almost fifteen years ago, we'd occasionally see a few crossing the road or grazing in the small clearings. For some reason, they haven't been around for several years now.

These large members of the deer clan are what help establish Olympic National Park in the first place. They can still be seen quite frequently in the meadows along the Upper Hoh Road and one herd occasionally wanders through the Hoh Campground.

Visitors have to be careful walking the trails in the Hoh area, especially the Spruce Nature Trail, which seems to be a favorite hangout for the elk. You really don't want to get too close to the large animals. In early summer, when the elk have calves, the mothers are very protective. In the fall, when the males are rutting, they become aggressive. It's best not to get any closer than 200 yards if you can absolutely help it. There have been a few times when elk have surprised me on the trail. The most important thing to remember is this is their home and we need to back out gracefully if we get in their way.

I do occasionally see Black-tailed Deer in the Kalaloch area, though not where you might expect. They like to hang out on the beach. Very early one morning, I'd come down to a fairly secluded spot and discovered a deer eating kelp that had washed up with the tide. I sat quietly and watched it until another unusual animal joined us - a coyote. Needless to say, the deer didn't stick around.

I've been told there's a lot of debate over the presence of coyotes in the Park. Some say they have always been here while others claim they moved in after wolves were hunted to extinction. I stay away from the argument. The coyotes are here now and they are certainly an active bunch. They not only go after deer but I've seen them with hares and other small furry critters like chipmunks and squirrels.

They aren't the only predators around. While walking down the beach one evening I was surprised to see a small cat run up the cliff side at my approach. It had been feeding on a dead gull. I only got the smallest glimpse of the spotted fur, just enough to realize that it had been a bobcat.

### Mountain Lions and Bears - Oh My!

I have been very fortunate in my time at Kalaloch to be able to observe one of the most beautiful and graceful animals I've ever seen. I affectionately gave this mountain lion the nickname Golden Girl. We first saw each other one lonely early spring day when I had stopped at South Beach Campground. The area was still closed for the season but I enjoy quietly sitting on a picnic table and watching the ocean. On this particular day, I wasn't alone.

South Beach is a terrace of gravel halfway in elevation between the highway and the actual beach. It's surrounded by bluffs, covered with spruce. She was sitting on the bluff at the north end of the campground, seemingly watching the waves, just like me. When I first realized she was there, I was more than a little nervous, realizing that I was out in the open with nowhere to go and she could run a lot faster than I could. Fortunately, I remembered to breathe and sat still. I knew the most important rule in dealing with any large animal - don't run.

I finally relaxed enough to really enjoy her company. She eventually yawned, looked at me, and walked away. Somehow I managed to shake the jitters out of my legs and climb back up the hill to my van. I saw her occasionally, over several years, in that same spot. We always had respect for each other and kept a healthy distance.

I discovered that Golden Girl had a den a little ways up the beach quite by accident. Walking along the sand I noticed two spotted tan balls of fur rolling together next to a small creek that had carved out a V-shaped gully in the cliff. I froze in place, curious, but not wanting to get too close. They didn't seem to notice me at all and went on with their wrestling match. Movement up the creek bed caught my attention and moments later Golden Girl jumped up onto a beach log not far from her cubs. This was much closer than I had ever been to her and far too close for my comfort but I really didn't want to make her mad so I just stood there. After looking over the scene, she jumped down and proceeded to wash her kids, while I tried to remember to breathe. Eventually she got up and they tottered after her into the foliage and disappeared from view. I went as far out from the cliff as the tide would allow and kept glancing over my shoulder as I continued up the beach.

I haven't seen Golden Girl since the logging company cut the timber on the hillside above the Park boundary. I'm guessing that either the activity of the operation or the change in habitat disrupted her natural pattern within her territory. Mountain Lions are solitary cats with huge home ranges that overlap with each other for mating purposes. I was honored to share a little of that space with her, even for just a short time.

The other large predator that occasionally visits Kalaloch is the Black Bear. I've discovered the name isn't accurate as they really aren't black but come in many shades of brown, from a light tan to very dark. My first encounter with a bear was a sad one because the bear was already dead. A motorist had hit the bear with his truck sometime in the night and a pair of bicyclers had discovered it the next day in the ditch. Unfortunately, this is the most common sighting.

I've had a few other glimpses of live bears but usually from a great distance or in a flash of motion as they race across the road in my headlights. The only time I've seen a bear that wasn't headed somewhere was when it was eating. In late summer, Kalaloch has a bounty of berry bushes. Most of the patches that the bears frequent are far from busy human locations. While traveling down one of the logging roads that winds into the hills beyond Kalaloch, a friend and I came around a corner and found a bear eating berries. The person I was with stopped and we sat in the truck watching the bear feast. He eventually backed up and turned around. Black Bears need to eat a lot to maintain their weight for the leaner winter months. Unlike bears in other areas, these don't hibernate. They wait for the fall and winter salmon runs, which is their fishing season.

Both of these large predators are rare. They keep the balance of predator and prey in the natural ecosystem. They should always be respected and left alone. Never run from either a mountain lion or a black bear. If a cat does approach you, make yourself look big, make a lot of noise, and at last resort, throw something at it. Bears are a different story. They need complete respect. Never look a bear in the eyes as to them, that's a sign of aggression. Always back away slowly, watching the feet of the bear. When you are out of site, turn and walk away. As it goes for any animal in Olympic National Park, this is their home and we are the visitors here.

### Fright or Delight

I sat around a campfire with my children one night when one of my daughters shrieked. A small bat had landed on the bush next to her. I calmed her down and convinced her to watch the bat quietly while it clung to the branch, cleaning itself. It eventually launched back into the sky to join the rest of its clan in the nightly bug hunt.

It's not at all uncommon to see bats on summer evenings, especially near the creeks where mosquitoes are prevalent. I've seen them at evening programs at the Campground Amphitheater and I've even seen one clinging to the bark of a Sitka Spruce. Many people seem to be naturally afraid of these important nighttime hunters. An average brown bat can consume up to a thousand mosquitoes in an hour. I'm for the bats!

There are many other animals that seem to end up on the fright list. I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked about snakes. There are no poisonous snakes at Kalaloch or anywhere in Olympic National Park. There are four species of Garter Snakes and the Rubber Boa. I've seen a couple of lizards here. Alligator Lizards sometimes sun themselves on beach logs and I discovered a Western Fence Lizard by the Lodge one day. I've never seen a turtle but there are plenty of amphibians around.

I don't hear as many frogs at Kalaloch as I do in other places but I occasionally catch a glimpse of the bright green Pacific Tree Frog along the banks of the creek. The most shocking encounter I've had with a frog was on the Kalaloch Nature Trail. It was getting dark as I made my way back toward the campground. I saw what looked like a brown, knitted hat on the ground. Thinking that someone had dropped it while walking on the trail, I moved toward it - and it hopped into the bushes toward the creek. It was actually a big, fat Bullfrog.

I have found several species of salamanders, including the endemic Olympic Salamander, in the little creek that the nature trail crosses. It has a light brown body with black spots. I've also seen Red-backed Salamanders and a yellow-backed Long Toed Salamander. My kids discovered a Rough Skinned Newt while exploring around our campsite on one excursion. It was hiding in a damp pile of leaves under the bushes.

### Slugs and Bugs

Some animals are small and often overlooked. These spineless creatures, called invertebrates, are as diverse as the habitats they live in. One of the best known rainforest inhabitants of this group is the Banana Slug.

Gardeners bemoan the slugs of the Pacific Northwest without realizing that most of the pests that eat their plants are invaders from distant lands. The Banana Slug is a true northwest native and not nearly as likely to show up in a garden. Banana Slugs prefer dead matter and fungi to live plants. If I happen to find one among my own vegetables, I carefully use a leaf to pick up the slug and move it to my compost pile. The leaf protects both of us.

Banana Slugs produce a sticky slime for protection from drying out and from hungry predators. The slime has a numbing effect that encourages would-be diners to drop the slug from their menu. Human hands are not good for the slugs either because our hands produce oils that could clog the pores of the slug's skin. Slugs breathe from their skin during normal respiration. When a slug is really working hard, a large opening in the side of its head, called a pneumostome, opens to increase the surface area for oxygen absorption.

The slime is marvelous stuff. It's as sticky as glue. If you get some on your hands or clothes, don't get it wet. That will only make it worse. Let it dry then treat it like rubber cement. For the slug, this slime is its life line. Not only does the slime allow the slug to travel across the rough ground without snagging on things, but the slug can actually use the slime as a rope. I've seen slugs dangle from branches as they find a way to drop down to the ground. It also collects things as the slug slinks along on its very powerful foot. Hemlock needles, pieces of lichen and moss, and odd bits of dead plant matter get caught in the slime and end up collecting on the slug's tail. I've watched a slug turn around and start chewing on the collection. It's like the slug carries a lunchbox around.

The slime also plays an important role when it gets too dry during the summer. I spent several hours one day watching a slug create a slime nest. It burrowed into a dense clump of grass, turned around a couple of times, excreting a layer of slime each time, until it was cocooned in a pile of slime and plant matter. I kept coming back to the spot to see what the slug was going to do. It didn't do anything until the day it rained. Then it freed itself from its pouch and went off to eat along the damp forest floor. I've learned this process is called estivation.

My favorite place to find slugs is on fungi. The slugs seem to have a preference for the flat-topped reddish Rusella mushrooms that pop out after a good rain. They also like Chicken-of-the-woods that show up in late summer. The Banana Slug helps the mushroom by wiggling the cap as it climbs up, knocking the spores out. It's not uncommon to see slug teeth marks in the tops of the Rusella, even when you don't find the slugs themselves. I was amazed when I learned that the average Banana Slug has around ten thousand microscopic teeth, much like their shelled cousins, the snails.

I've even had the opportunity to see slugs in a mating dance. That had to be one of the more unusual events I had to explain to my kids. Imagine your eight-year-old telling you that he's found two slugs wrestling. Slugs are hermaphrodites, which means both male and female. They couple with each other but only one leaves with all of his parts intact. Try explaining that to an already puzzled child!

Slugs lay eggs in a little bundle of slime then crawl away. I've only seen pictures of slug eggs but I have found some very tiny Banana Slugs. I think they're cute. My kids think I'm weird.

There are a host of other tiny critters that make their way through the rainforest. I'm quite partial to the Almond Millipedes that trundle along, their segmented black bodies with bright yellow, and sometimes red, spots undulating on spindly legs. They get their name from the slight almond smell they give off but you don't really want to smell it too closely as it's a protective device in the form of cyanide.

I love watching the carabid beetles scurry across the landscape. These fairly large beetles are a type of scarab beetle. They are scavengers, looking for dead things that mindless humans step on when they aren't paying attention.

There are numerous spiders that make their home in the hollows of trees. There is one particular spider that spins a web so tight that it holds water. The spider sits at the edge of its pool and waits for other insects to come for a drink, and then has dinner.

There are several critters that really bug visitors in the springtime and early summer. The first to appear is the termite. These flying ants can swarm in vast clouds that annoy campers but delight many bird species. They also feed numerous small ground-dwelling animals. They build up huge piles of needles and create intricate tunnels systems. I've found many small amphibians digging into these mounds for a tasty morsel. Some kinds of voles and mice also dig in but they are looking for the larvae rather than the adults.

The other similar species that is often confused with the termites is the carpenter ant. Unlike termites, carpenter ants don't eat wood. They prefer fallen logs for their homes but they are scavengers and predators. I've watched them work right along side the carabid beetles as they clean up a squashed slug on the trail.

An unusual event occurs in early summer after we see the first really warm days - the mating flight of the carpenter ants. Those ready to reproduce will grow wings and emerge from their nests to find mates. A single female will mate with several males. The males die soon afterward and the female loses her wings. The female carpenter ants spend the next few days to weeks crawling around, looking for a new home to lay their brood of workers.

Visitors to the Lodge are often frustrated by the pesky ants and want to know why the Lodge isn't doing anything about them. The staff is very polite to these disgruntled guests and does their best to remind them that Kalaloch is a natural place where humans are the guests and the ants are the local residents. Carpenter Ants play an important role in the ecology of the rainforest, helping to break down decomposing wood, process nutrients, and feed a host of other animals. The ants don't stay out in the open any longer than they have to.

There are occasional problems with hornets and wasps, especially the ground-dwelling variety. The Park Service does try to put up warning signs if a large colony is found too close to a trail. I've found the best course of action is to wear long sleeves and pants, and to pay attention to where I step. I keep an eye out for holes in the ground and keep my distance from any that have small things flying around them.

* * *

## Chapter 4 - Where are all the Sea Shells?

Many people associate sandy beaches with sea shells. Visitors who come to Kalaloch are often disappointed by the lack of pretty little shells to collect. The strong Pacific Ocean waves make these beaches a challenge for snails - the producers of sea shells. Most snails are found in sheltered areas where the waves aren't as likely to disturb their slow-motion lives.

The persistent beachcomber might actually find an occasional shell, especially in areas where there are rocks in the surf. Snails have one strong foot that allows them to cling to the rocks, even in the waves. But even the strongest foot can loose its grip under the power of the restless ocean. Even when snails do get washed off and die, the shells can become secondary homes for a new inhabitant. Hermit crabs crawl into empty shells and carry them away.

There are a few highly sought after, nearly-flat shells that do wash up on the beaches around the Lodge and Main Campground. These round-shelled creatures are referred to as Sand Dollars. Dead ones are smooth and creamy white with the characteristic five-pointed star on the top side. The animals are hard-shelled cousins of seastars. They are members of the sea urchin family that, when alive, have tiny purple spines and tube feet that allow them to move along the sandy bottom, stand up on one end to feed, and burrow under the sand when the waves get turbulent.

Sand dollars eat plankton. They have an interesting way of catching their food. If you look closely at a sand dollar shell, called a test, you'll notice a tiny hole near the rim. That's the 'bottom' end of the sand dollar. Funny to think that a round creature has a bottom end but this one does. The large hole in the center of the flat side is its mouth. When a sand dollar wants to eat, it uses its tube feet to pull itself upright with the bottom end buried in the sand and the mouth facing the waves. There are lines, easy to see on a dead sand dollar, where tube feet move the tiny plankton toward the mouth. The teeth of the sand dollar are often called 'peace doves' because of their shape. If you shake a whole dead sand dollar, you can hear them rattling inside.

### Not So Dead Crabs

The shells I spend most of my time collecting on the beach belong to the Dungeness Crab. When the shells pile up in large numbers, the inevitable question arises: why are all the crabs dead? Please let me relieve your mind on this. The vast majority of the crabs are just fine. As a matter of fact, they're quite happy because they are now a little bit bigger and sporting fine new clothes to boot!

Crabs belong to a group of invertebrates called crustaceans. Their hard armor isn't so much a shell as it is hard skin. Once that skin becomes hard, it can no longer grow. A new layer of skin begins to grow beneath it. This new layer is soft and wrinkled. When the new layer is fully developed, the crab finds a safe place to hide and literally steps out of its old skin. There is a built-in hinge at the front edge. The back of the skin cracks open, the top pops up a little at the hinge, and the crab backs out. Once free of the old skin, the crab takes a gulp of sea water and blows up the new skin like we would blow up a balloon. After a couple of days, the new skin hardens and the process starts all over again. The bigger the crab, the longer it takes for the next layer to be ready to wear.

My fascination with the shells is the intriguing proportions of the sizes of the shells when the crabs molt. The reddish brown carapaces, the back sides, have small points on either side of the shell. If you lay the carapace on a metric ruler, the points lie on a number divisible by 5 millimeters. The smallest I've discovered is 10 millimeters, which is smaller than a dime. If you stack the carapaces inside each other in order, you can easily see the relationship from one size to the next. It's just another of nature's marvels on the sandy beach - an organism that is metric.

The shedding process is vital for the propagation of the species. It's easy to tell the difference between a male and female Dungeness Crab by looking at the tail, which is tucked under the bottom and lays flat against the crab's abdomen. The female has a wide blunt tail with many feathery spindles on the edges. The male's tale is narrow and pointy with two prongs on the underside.

The crabs go through an elaborate mating ritual in which the female, when she's ready to shed, gives off a chemical that males all around her can taste in the water. The males battle in front of her, showing off, trying to prove they are the hottest dudes on the block. She'll pick the one she likes and allow him to wrap his arms and claws around her. He even helps her molt. Once she slips out of her skin, he does his duty to the species and spends the next couple of days protecting her while her new shell hardens. Then he goes off to find another dance partner.

The female spends the next six to eight weeks hauling around a cluster of shiny red eggs in her egg basket under her tail. When the eggs are ready to hatch, she stands up in the sand, facing the incoming surf, and uses her back legs to kid the eggs out into the water. They hatch into microscopic plankton that look like commas. The baby crabs will spend the next few months as plankton, eating and growing until they are ready to settle down in the sand with a hard shell of their own.

### Clam Digger

The other common shell belongs to the Razor Clam. This animal, unfortunately, can't survive without its shell. Clams are bivalves, which means they have two shells that are held closed by strong muscles at a hinge. They grow from the hinge outward and you can see the growth rings in their shells like rings of a tree.

Razor clams have drawn humans to Kalaloch Beach for centuries. Native peoples harvested these clams for food and one of the first businesses that Europeans had in the Kalaloch area was a clam cannery. The foot and muscle of the razor clam are edible and many claim they are the tastiest of all the clams.

I'm afraid I'm not a clam coinsure but I've watched many tenacious diggers pursue their prizes deep into the sandy beach. These quick clams have an incredible ability to liquefy the sand around their shells and use their foot to pull their bodies downward as much as five feet in less than a minute. Expert diggers use a clam gun, which is a hollow tube about 6 inches across that has a small hole at the top. The digger pushes the tube down into the sand where they think a clam might be then covers the hole at the top to create suction, allowing the entire tube length of sand to be pulled up all at once.

When I first began coming to Kalaloch, there were many clam digs, usually in late winter and into spring. But that has changed over the years and many fear that the Razor Clams of Kalaloch will soon be gone. This may partly be do to the pressures of human harvest but researches fear that changes in the ocean are the biggest threat to these burrowing clams. Over the past decade, a virus had spread through the population and pH levels of the ocean water have dropped. These two factors could lead to an end of clams on Kalaloch beaches.

### Foam

The waves bring many things to the beach. When visitors to Kalaloch see the billowing foam, their first thought tends to be pollution. Fortunately, that is not the case. This creamy white to brown foam is the remains of billions of microscopic plankton, the very foundation of the ocean food chain.

It never ceases to amaze me that the smallest creature on the planet is the most important to all air-breathing organisms - us included. The tiny microscopic plants produce up to seventy percent of earth's oxygen, depending on the time of year. There are also a variety of animal-like plankton that eat the plant type. Most are so small that you could have ten thousand of them in a teaspoon of ocean water and never see them.

Plankton live at the very top of the surface of the ocean and are at the mercy of the tides. When the wind blows in off the ocean, it can push mats of plankton toward the shore. As it gets caught in the waves, this slurry is whipped up and becomes frothy foam. Once on the beach, the foam dries out and mixes into the sand to become food for many tiny organisms that live among the sand grains.

Not all plankton is microscopic. The word 'plankton' means wandering drifter. This refers to any species that can't control its direction. Sometimes jellyfish wash in and die on the beach. I've found tiny, round Gooseberries, four-chambered Moon Jellies, and even a few bigger ones with brown bells and long, red tentacles. Those you don't want to touch because the tentacles have stinging cells.

One year there was a huge wash of By-the-wind-sailors. These small jellies have blue bases with a clear fin that stands up. They are like little living sailboats. The wind had pushed a huge pile of them upon the beach where millions of them had died.

### Fishing for Fun and Food

Many of the people I've met over the years come to Kalaloch to fish on the beach. There's very little fishing elsewhere in the Kalaloch area as Kalaloch Creek is closed to fishing from the mouth at the ocean to the bridge over the highway and the rest is only catch and release. If you want to keep and eat your fish, they have to come out of the ocean.

There are several methods for getting fish from the surf, depending on the type of fish. There are several species of fingerling fish, the most common being smelt, that come into shore to spawn. Fishermen armed with dip nets stand waist-deep in the breakers and angle the nets into the waves, trying to scoop up the squirming fish. Along with the smelt, fishermen sometimes find anchovies, herring, and sardines.

Fishermen with poles, who have to have a special saltwater fishing license, are usually catching surf perch. On rare occasions I've seen them catch rock fish or flounder. The fishermen have to be careful with the rock fish because several species are protected or have specific limits.

One of the most interesting fish I've seen on Kalaloch beach was a shark. It was a young blue shark that had somehow gotten caught in the incoming tide. There was quite a commotion when people realized what it was. It was still alive as its gill slits were moving. I'd learn to pet sharks in an aquarium and slowly approached the shark with a friend who was excited to get some pictures. When I realized that it was trying to get back out into the surf, I convinced my friend to carefully help me turn to shark toward the water. On the next incoming wave, it swam away. It was a truly amazing moment to realize that I had helped this creature return to its natural habitat.

* * *

## Chapter 5 - What is a Tidepool?

One of my favorite pastimes at Kalaloch is exploring the tidepools. The easiest ones to get to are at Beach 4 and Ruby Beach. Although there are rocks in the surf that are exposed in other places in the Kalaloch area, these two spots have much greater diversity of organisms.

I've encountered many disappointed visitors who didn't understand what tidepools were and had come at the wrong time of the month, or the wrong time of the year, to see them. Tidepools are more than just a pool of water left over when the tide goes out. They generally involve something solid, like rocks for example, that living things can cling to. These rocks have to be far enough out in the surf for the organisms to be covered most of the time by water. It's only when the ocean pulls back far enough that we can get close to these organisms to see them.

### The Tides

I've encountered people who have little or no understanding of the tides at all. One visitor once asked me what had happened. She was sure that the ocean waves had been much closer to the shore when she'd gone out for her walk. I managed not to laugh and asked her where she was from - Kansas. They certainly don't have to worry about tides there!

Tides are a natural effect caused by the gravity of the moon and the sun on Earth's vast body of water we call the ocean. The moon, because it is much closer to Earth than the sun, has the strongest effect. The lunar tides occur in two week cycles with the lowest and highest tides occurring at full moon and new moon. You can think of the ocean as a giant rubber band stretched around the planet. The moon and sun both hang on to the ocean as the world turns under it.

The moon is also going around the earth roughly every twenty eight days. At full moon, the moon is directly opposite the sun so they are having a tug of war with the ocean. The tides closest to the moon and the sun, at noon and midnight, are very high. The tides at dawn and dusk will be low. At half moon, the sun and moon are at right angles to each other so their pull isn't as strong and the tides are not as high or as low. Then at new moon, the sun and moon are lined up and their combined gravity not only pulls on the ocean, but it pulls the earth away from the ocean on the other side.

The seasons also affect the tides because the sun is part of the equation. The best high and low tides are closest to the solstices. In the summer, the best low tides are in the morning but in the winter, the best low tides are at night. The tides aren't as dramatic at the equinoxes when the tides are about equal between morning and evening.

There is also a difference between the full moon tides and the new moon tides. Some years, the full moon tides will be much lower at Kalaloch while other years it will be the new moon tides that are lower. This occurs because the moon's orbit is not exactly parallel to the equator of the earth. It's off by about 6 degrees. When the moon's node - it's path in relation to Earth's equator - is high, the lunar tides in the northern hemisphere are stronger so the full moon tides in the summer, early in the morning, will be lower than the new moon tides. The lower the tides, the greater the diversity of life that is exposed to our view in the tidepools of Kalaloch.

### Life Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The tidepools are a dramatic canvas of living things and humans need to be aware that we are just visitors to this alien world for a short time on a handful of days each month. It's vital that we pay attention, especially to our feet, which can do severe damage to this amazing habitat. It can also do damage to us if we slip and fall! Remember that surfaces are slippery when wet and they are always wet in the tidepools. The best way to observe the dance of life safely is to remain on the sand and walk around the rocks.

There's an old saying that the ocean is a harsh mistress. I keep this in mind as I move around the rocks at low tide. All of the organisms here have had to develop strategies to help them survive life between that rock and the hard pounding surf of the wild Pacific Ocean.

There are defined bands of life in the tidepools that describe these strategies. It's a balance between safety from things that want to eat you and just how long you can stay out of water. The organisms closest to shore that can stay out of the water the longest tend to be very small and sometimes go unnoticed by those drawn to the bigger, more colorful creatures.

If you pause for a moment before delving into the farther rocks, you'll discover tiny snails, limpets, and barnacles. The snails can be as small as the head of a pin. They are called periwinkles. Because they are so small, they can live almost a month without additional water. These small organisms live in what marine biologists call the _splash zone_.

Limpets are close cousins of the snail that only have a cap instead of a full shell. They make up for this by having one strong foot and the ability to clamp their shell down tight to the rocks. Limpets have a special water chamber between the inside of their shell and their bodies. They carry water on their backs like a scuba diver carries air tanks.

Both limpets and periwinkles have a specialized mouth called a radula. Their tongues are equipped with thousands of microscopic teeth that allow them to scrape algae off the rocks. Sometimes you can even see the trails they've left in their wake.

### High Tide Zone

As you go a little farther in, you begin to see a definite line of larger barnacles and dark mussels. The barnacles are creamy white to brown. Some look like little volcanoes with a pistachio nut pushed into them. They are called acorn barnacles. If you watch them closely, you might see the shells inside move as the barnacle circulates the water trapped inside. This water is what allows the barnacle to live in the high tide zone.

Another form of barnacles, called Goose-neck Barnacles, look like pointed white heads, covered in shell plates, jammed into a tight dome-shaped cluster. If you look closely at the base of this cluster, you'll discover that the shelled portion is supported by a rough soft brown neck, which is firmly attached to the rock. This soft neck acts as a shock absorber to the powerful waves that rush over these colonies at high tide.

Both types of barnacles have a fascinating life history. They begin as eggs, released from their parent during spawning, floating in the sea as plankton. In this planktonic form, they look like little microscopic ghosts. They spend their first few months feeding on other plankton before changing form into a something that looks like a football with a feathery tail. They can no longer eat and have only one mission - to find a rock to call home for the rest of their life. When the ocean waves push them into a rock, they taste it with the feathery appendage to make sure it's a good spot. If it tastes good, they glue their head plate down to the rock and begin pulling calcium out of the water to form a shell. They will live on their backs, kicking their feet through the opening of the shell to capture plankton, the rest of their lives.

Just below the barnacles is a dense mat of mussels. The smaller, generally bluish black mussels are appropriately named blue mussels. Their larger cousins, which tend to have more brown in their color, are California mussels. Unlike the barnacles, they are not permanently attached. They cling to the rocks, and anything else, with thin filaments called bissell fiber. These golden threads are excreted by the mussel as a thick liquid that quickly solidifies as a strong fiber. Not only do these threads hold the mussels in place but they allow the mussels to slowly relocate if their current attachment site becomes unfavorable.

Crawling in and around the barnacles and mussels are snails, worms, and a host of small creatures called amphipods. These snails are much larger than their smaller cousins, the periwinkles, and are predators rather than grazers. They belong to a group of snails called the dogwinkles. The two most common species at Kalaloch are the striped dogwinkles and the wrinkled dogwinkles.

You can tell which direction a dogwinkle is moving by looking at its shell. You'll notice a definite point at one end where the tip has a channel formed by a curl in the edge of the shell. This is the front side and that channel protects the snail's tongue while it feeds. Like all snails, the dogwinkle has a radula that is adapted for the way it eats. The tip has the sharp teeth but these are used to drill holes through other shells. The tongue is hollow so that once the dogwinkle has drilled the hole, it can squirt some gastric juice inside its victim, wait a bit, and then slurp up the milkshake it has made through its tongue.

The worms that wind through the high tide zone come in two forms. Long smooth ones and segments worms with tiny feet. The smooth ribbon worms come in a variety of colors. The segmented polychaete worms are usually drab and much harder to see. Both types of worms are predators and the prey they are hunting for are the very tiny amphipods, most of which look like their buggy cousins in the forest.

### Middle Tide Zone

There is often a very distinct line below the mussels that separates the high tide zone from the middle tide zone. Below this line lives the most feared predator in the tidepools - the ocher sea star. It's also the one that most people want to see. The ocher sea star ranges in color from purple to orange with some looking closer to brown and others almost blue. On rare occasions you can find a reddish colored one and I've even seen pale yellow and peach colored ones. No matter the color, they all have tiny white dots on their top surfaces and rows of slender tube feet on the bottom. Sea stars belong to a group of organisms called echinoderms. All of the creatures in this group have tube feet and usually a five part body plan. There are exceptions to that rule, even among sea stars.

If you get a chance to take a closer look at a sea star you may notice a circular lighter colored spot near the center of its top surface. This is the madreporite, which is the opening of a sea star's hydraulic system. Sea stars use water pressure to move their tube-feet. Each tube-foot has a bulb filled with water at the base. There are muscles on each side that squeeze the bulb and force the water into the tube, extending it in a certain direction. On the tip of the tube-foot are two little glands; one contains glue and the other contains glue remover. The seastar literally glues itself down to the surface and has to use a chemical to unstick itself. This is why you never want to pull on a seastar because it takes time for the glue to dissolve. The tube-feet are more likely to break off, hurting the animal.

The seastar uses those sticky feet for more than just hanging around. This critter is the ultimate arm wrestler, having five to work with. Its favorite food is the mussel. Mussels are pretty strong. They don't really want to get eaten so they have powerful muscles trying to keep their shell closed. The seastar wraps its arms around the mussel and starts to pull. It doesn't have to open the shell very far - only about an eighth of an inch. Once open, the seastar slips its stomach into the shell, inside-out, so that the gastric juices can dissolve the mussel right in the shell. When finished digesting its meal, the seastar reswallows its stomach and moves on to the next victim.

If you touch an ochre seastar you'll discover why this species can live this high up on the rocks. Its body is quite hard, being composed of microscopic interlocking plates covered with a rough skin. The little white bumps are very tiny pincers that the seastar uses to keep sand and other particles off its back. Seastars breathe through their skin so they don't want material clogging the pores. If you want to get eye to eye with a seastar, you have to get real close. They have five eyes, one on the tip of each arm. They are surrounded by a cluster of the little pincers, which keep them clean.

Another predator hangs out with the ochre seastars but this one has a whole different approach to dinner. It gets grabby. The green surf anemone and its smaller cousin, the aggregate anemone, are cousins of the jellyfish that have evolved to live attached to the rocks by their bell so that their tentacles hang free in the water. Like a jellyfish, each tentacle is tipped with a stinging cell. Many visitors want to touch the tentacles, experiencing the odd, sticky sensation but this really is not a good thing for either the human or the anemone. Some people are sensitive to the chemical in the stinging cell and can have a reaction. It's even worse for the anemone as it looses the stinging cell, which it will have to replace.

Green Surf Anemones can get quite large, some bigger than a dinner plate. They owe their green color to a symbiotic partner - a green algae that lives in their cells. This algae pays rent to their host in the form of food, since algae is a plant and can make sugars from sunlight.

The smaller Pink-tipped Aggregate Anemones are not only colonial but also clones. They will broadcast spawn in fall like their bigger cousins, the Green Surf Anemones, but they practice a very different reproductive strategy all summer long. These small anemones will pull themselves apart into two separate genetically-identical clones over and over until they fill the available rock space. If they bump into another clone group, they will have a war. Special stinging cells will develop below the tentacles of the warriors and they will attack the unrelated clones across the space until one side backs off. Distinct lines appear between the different colonies like neutral zones between warring countries.

The middle tide zone is not uncovered nearly as much as the ones above so the organisms that live here tend to have softer bodies than those that live higher up. It still pays to have plate armor and the chitons have developed a unique approach that combines shell plates with a tough hide. Chitons are relatives to limpets and snails. They are grazers and their radula is designed for lapping the microscopic algae off the rocks. One of the coolest things I've learned about these primitive-looking creatures is that their teeth are magnetic. They have a built-in GPS system that allows them to find their way around and still get home.

Chitons have eight overlapping shell plates on their back that cover a tough mantle, which protects their single foot underneath. Some people mistake them for fossils of trilobites when they discover them on the rocks. These overlapping plates are a big advantage, allowing the chitons to bend around edges and into crevasses while still providing coverage for their foot.

### Low Tide Zone

The low tide zone is only visible on the lowest minus tides, when the tide is less than sea level. To understand why the tide can be lower than sea level, consider water in a measuring cup. As you tip the cup the water drops below the measuring mark. The more you tip the cup, the farther below the mark the water will be.

The organisms of the low tide zone are not often exposed. They tend to have soft bodies and many don't have shells. While some are challenging to see, one that really stands out are the Red Feather Duster Tubeworms. Beach 4 has one of the largest populations in the Pacific Northwest because of the amount of sand surrounding the rocks. These unique worms have a special relationship with sand. They create a tube by excreting spit and mixing it with sand. The tube is fairly soft, enabling it to flex in the powerful surge tides where the colonies are found. The colonies create dark brown domes on the rocks in the low tide zone. The dome shape allows the energy of the water to flow over the colony.

This is one of the reasons that this species is protected. At one time, fishermen harvested tubeworms for bait. They are one of the favorite foods of surf perch. However, when a section of the colony was disturbed, it created a flat surface that the waves could attack. The entire colony was scraped off the rock. Every summer, scientists from the Park Service set up a special grid and map the colonies of tube worms at Beach 4 to study their recovery.

The tubeworms earn the name of red feather duster because of their beautiful gill structure. There are some colonies that live on rocks with pools of water that remain after the tide goes out. If you look at the members of the colony that remain underwater you can get a glimpse of the dark red feathery gills. Just don't get too close. They very quickly duck back inside their tube if your shadow falls over them. They can't tell the difference between a human observer and a hungry fish.

If you're lucky enough to be there at an extremely low tide, keep a lookout for a shiny reddish seastar that has a soft body. The Leather Star doesn't like to be out of the water very long. It does have a really odd trait - it smells like garlic. I didn't believe this when I first heard it but I've since had the opportunity to test the theory and it's true. I guess this seastar doesn't have to worry about vampires.

I've found another interesting seastar at Ruby Beach but it's a lot harder to find because it's so small. The Six-rayed Seastar only gets as big as a half dollar. Unlike other types of seastars, this species has six legs instead of five. It is mottled gray in color, making it even harder to find. This particular species has a very unique way of reproducing. Most seastars are broadcast spawners but the Six-rayed Seastar broods its young. When a female lays eggs, she keeps them right around her mouth in the center of her arms and stands up on tiptoes. She uses her tube-feet to keep the eggs clean. The eggs hatch into microscopic seastars called spat. They generally don't live as plankton. The babies crawl down mom's arms and join her on the rock.

Another seastar with more than five arms is the Sunflower Star. These seastars have very soft bodies and a whole lot of tube-feet. They start out with five legs when they are very small but add on as they grow. Some big ones can have up to 24 arms. Sunflower Stars are more at home on the sand than on the rocks. They are very fast. I watched one move through a tidepool one day. It was going faster than an average person walks. These are voracious predators who have an even scarier eating style than their less-limbed cousins. They extend their stomach out and engulf their prey, digest it, and leave just the shell behind.

Another type of echinoderm lives at Ruby Beach - the Red Sea Cucumber. This odd looking creature resembles a limp, red pickle tucked in a crack in the rock. It has rows of squat tube-feet along its body. When covered with water, this animal sticks feathery gills out to capture plankton. When a section of the gills is full, it sticks the entire section down its throat to its stomach. Talk about licking your fingers!

One of the most diverse and beautiful groups of low tide invertebrates are the nudibranchs. These snails have no shells. Some are covered in tentacles and look like small bits of shag rug moving across the rocks. One of the most beautiful is the Opalescent Nudibranch. It has brightly colored tentacles, making it look like a moving work of art. In late July, I usually begin watching the lowest tides for the bright yellow Sea Lemons. These nudibranchs come in to mate at Ruby Beach. The female will weave the eggs into a billowing white ribbon attached to the rocks. If you are a vary good observer, you might even be lucky enough to find one of the tiny Frosted Nudibranchs. They tend to curl up into what looks like an iridescent pearly spiral.

### Tidepool Etiquette

If you truly want to experience the rich diversity of tidepool life, you have to research the tides and be prepared to get up early. The lowest tides occur around dawn in June and July, either at full moon or new moon, depending on the year. Never turn your back to the ocean as sneaker waves can advance higher than the average waves and could catch you off guard. It's best to stay off the rocks and keep your feet on the sand. Watch out for water pools around rocks. The sand contains a lot of water and could suck you in.

The most important thing to remember is that these organisms are living in a challenging environment where they are struggling to keep the balance between staying wet and keeping away from predators. As visitors to their world, we need to respect these survivors and not step on their toes. It saddens me to see the footpaths that have been created on the rocks where careless people have crushed the barnacles, leaving only skullcaps in their wake.

Don't rip creatures off the rocks. Snails and limpets trap water inside their shells and when human fingers pry them away from the rock, that water is lost. Pulling mussels from their mats and seastars from the rock reduce the chances that those organisms will survive. It's better to simply observe with your eyes. If you're going to touch, do it gently and watch out for things that might touch back, like the tentacles of sea anemones. As the ocean becomes more acidic because of human pollution, the least we can do is tread lightly in this realm between the tides.

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## Chapter 6 - What about the Birds?

Kalaloch has a lot of interesting birds that pass through the area and a handful that stay here all year long. The most common residents include Steller's Jays, Robins, Northwest Crows, and Ravens. Smaller birds like Fox Sparrows and the newly renamed Pacific Wren dance through the shrubs. Invasive House Sparrows and Starlings are just as common here as elsewhere. But it's the harder to see species that have me pulling my binoculars out.

The Nuthatch and Brown Creeper love the scaly bark of the Sitka Spruce for the bugs that take shelter under the edges of the bark scales. There are a whole host of smaller birds from harder to find sparrow and wren species to a wide array of warblers, kinglets, and vireos. We get glimpses of crossbills high in the canopy and, when the twinberry ripens, the cedar waxwings dance through the tall bushes along the coast.

Kalaloch Creek draws ducks like the common mallard and green-winged teal to more interesting species like goldeneye, buffleheads, and mergansers. The ratchety call of the belted kingfisher is common in the summer.

Kalaloch Lodge hosts bird visitors every summer as the swallows return. Barn Swallows take up residence on boards about light fixtures and Cliff Swallows pack mud nests under the eves of the Mercantile. The wires between the buildings make a convenient perch for the resting adults. I love watching their aerobatic flight across the creek as they scoop up as many bugs as they can to take back to excited youngsters with wide open mouths. Some years, we've even been lucky enough to host a chimney swift in the tall brick chimney.

One of the shiest birds in the area sometimes hangs out in the alders along the narrow waterway beside the Beach 4 trail. You can hear them take flight but it can be challenging to get a quick glimpse of these large, native Band-tailed Pigeons. Their dusky gray color allows them to blend in with the shadows on the mossy branches.

### Knock on Wood

I love the sounds that the different birds of Kalaloch make. I pause whenever I catch the distant tapping of a woodpecker. There are five common species that either live in or visit the Kalaloch area. I've always been amazed by these birds and their ability to smack their beaks against solid wood continuously. They have some useful adaptations in their thick, little skulls from a special wrap-around-the-head jaw brace to an additional eyelid that acts as a seatbelt to keep their eyes from popping out of their head. Woodpeckers drum on wood for a variety of reasons, not just for finding food. Most species make a new nest hole each season. The tapping is also a form of bird Morse code. When they really want to get the message across, they pound hard and loud. I encountered one who was making a territorial statement on a metal stop sign. You could hear it almost a half mile away.

I was lucky enough to discover the nest hole of the largest one - the Pileated Woodpecker - while walking on the nature trail. Their distinctive piercing cry and slow tapping drew my eyes up a tall snag to a large hole near the top. One partner clung to the vertical surface while the other poked its head, topped with the dramatic flaming-red crest, out of the hole.

I watched the nest hole through early summer and was delighted to catch a glimpse of two babies learning the art of bug catching from their parents. These woodpeckers also eat berries. On occasion, they can be found in the red huckleberry bushes, plucking off the ripe fruit.

Two of the area woodpeckers are easy to confuse without a size reference because their coloration is so similar. Both have white breasts and black backs with white spots. The males have small red patches on the back of their necks. The Hairy Woodpecker is larger and has a flatter head than the smaller Downy Woodpecker. I've found both species in the drift logs on the beach as well as in the trees of the coastal rainforest.

The last two woodpeckers both have very unique ways of grabbing a meal. The Red-breasted Sapsucker is sometimes confused with an eastern relative with a red head. It will make a series of holes all in a row. In the Kalaloch area it seems to prefer alder and young red cedar trees. The sap wells up in the holes and traps bugs, which the sapsucker comes back to harvest.

The Northern Flicker prefers to pick up the bugs on the ground. This large tan bird with dark bands and bright red head patch makes a distinctive sound when it takes off. You often see the white underside of the tail and a red flash of color from under the wings. One of the oddest sights I've seen is two male flickers trying to impress a date. They sat facing each other on a branch with their beaks pointed up, bobbing their heads. I have no idea what criteria the female flicker used but she eventually flew off with one of them. My guess is the other one was too dizzy to move.

### Hum that Tune

Another distinct bird sound is the tiny chip and buzz of the hummingbirds. There are two hummingbird species that spend their summers at Kalaloch. The male Rufus Hummingbird is a small reddish gold blur. If they sit still long enough, you can see a white bib under the iridescent neck feathers. The female tends to have shades of green on her head and back and a white chin. This species is one of the few that stay in the Pacific Northwest through the wet winter. I've had them show up at my feeder on Christmas Day.

Anna's Hummingbirds are dazzling green gems with wings. The males have bright red heads and the females have a dusky neck patch. These hummingbirds are migrant visitors who usually spend winters farther south but come to Kalaloch each summer to reproduce.

Both species have some things in common. They both seem to prefer the twinberry bushes on the cliff tops, especially in the campgrounds. They are both very territorial and will 'buzz' people who get too close to their nests. The males have elaborate mating flights that includes rocketing straight up and quickly zooming back down. They have a perky beep-beep sound to announce their presence.

I've watched hummingbirds take nectar from all kinds of flowers. They also eat insects. I watched one male Rufus stealing insects from a spider's swimming pool. I've also seen both species licking at the mineral-rich water coming out of the cliff faces in the summer. They are at home on the beach as much as in the bushes.

### Shorebirds and Seabirds

Most people don't realize that there's a difference between a shorebird and a seabird. Both are occasionally found close enough to the beach to be confused. The biggest difference has to do with salt tolerance. Shorebirds need freshwater. Seabirds have a unique adaptation that allows them to take in saltwater, filter it in the back of their throat, and sneeze out the salt. Seabirds have a special tube on the side of their beak for this purpose. This has earned them the nickname of tubenose.

There are several distinct types of shorebirds that visit Kalaloch every summer. The stilt-legged wave runners include several species of sandpipers, Sanderlings, and Semipalmated Plover. On rare occasions a wandering Wimbrel or Long-billed Dowitcher will stop by. These long-billed waders are interested in the tiny amphipods and worms that live in the sand. The waves dislodge these little creatures and the birds rush out to grab the bounty.

Another type of shore bird is the rock sitter. Kalaloch Rocks, in front of the Lodge, is the prefect place to watch for these species. Brants Cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, and Pelagic Cormorant all stand, wings outstretched to dry, like black statues on the rocks. They are often joined by gulls, and more recently, by Pacific Brown Pelicans.

I can still remember a time when there were no pelicans at Kalaloch. They began showing up in late spring about ten years ago. These very large shorebirds have a characteristic flight pattern that resembles a bomber squadron. They fly just above the rolling breakers then plunge bill first down into the water. They bob back up moments later and squeeze the water out of their neck pouches. They often rest beside the cormorants on the rocks.

In more secluded areas of the Kalaloch Strip, Black Oystercatchers stake out claims on top of sea stacks. These black birds with bright red bills and eyes have a high-pitched call that warns people to stay away from their nest. I've met a few energetic folks who have climbed some of the sea stacks and found the creamy speckled eggs in the little circle of gravel. These are not abandoned and once curious humans climb down, the flustered parents return. It's better to leave these high pinnacles to the birds.

A third type of shorebird generally doesn't come to shore very often. This group is sometimes termed diving ducks because of their appearance on the water. They spend most of their time floating in large groups beyond the breakers, disappearing below the surface to grab their food. They can be seen with binoculars from the top of the cliff.

The most common in the Kalaloch area are the scoters. I see a lot of Surf and some White-winged Scoters and on rare occasions, Black Scoters. Mixed in with the scoters are Pacific Loons, Western Grebes, Common Murre, and an occasional Pigeon Guillemot. All of these floaters look dark from the shore so unless you have a high-power spotting scope, it's nearly impossible to tell them apart.

We only get brief glimpses of seabirds. The few I've seen were most likely blown off course by a storm. There have been a few sightings of storm-petrels, shearwaters, and occasional Tufted Puffin. Unfortunately, the most common way to find these seabirds is dead, washed in by the tide. This was how I got my only close-up look at a Black-footed Albatross. The saddest part of that story was the plastic found in its gullet, a common problem for birds that feed on fish and invertebrates on the ocean's surface.

### Not Just a Gull

By far, the most common bird seen on the beaches of Kalaloch is the gull. I love watching gulls, especially the flocks that come to Kalaloch Creek to drink and bathe. This is a vital source of fresh water for these birds, which are shorebirds, not true seabirds. Gulls lack the tubenose of true seabirds and must stay close to a freshwater source. This fact earned them the love and respect of olden day sailors. They knew that when they saw gulls, fresh water wasn't far away.

Many visitors who see me watching the gulls through binoculars are puzzled why I would bother. They're just gulls, right? There's no such thing. There are actually nine common gull species that visit the Kalaloch area through the year. There are three that are almost always in the area: The Western Gull, the Glaucous-wing Gull, and the hybrid of those two species, the Olympic Gull.

During the summer, two smaller gulls, the Mew Gull and the Ring-billed Gull, occasionally drop by. Herring Gulls and California Gulls also make occasional summer stops. One of the most dramatic late summer visitors is the Hearmann's Gull. Unlike the other gull species that are generally white as adults and various grays as juveniles, the Hearmann's Gulls are silvery gray as adults with bright red beaks and feet. The juveniles of this species are dark charcoal gray. They stand out in the crowd.

A close relative of the gull, the terns, are also occasional summer visitors and tend to stay near the larger flocks of gulls. But it's not just their flat black heads and slender bright red bills that give them away. They have a very harsh call compared to the other gull species. You can often hear them before you see them.

My favorite gull of all shows up in fall. It's the largest gull species that visits the Kalaloch area. The Thayer's Gull stands around 32 inches tall compared to the Western Gull at around 28 inches. These are big birds! There's just something magical about watching a flock of Thayer's Gulls come in and totally dwarf all the other gulls on the beach.

It really bothers me when people chase the gulls on the beach. Not only does it make it hard to watch the gulls from a distance, but it interrupts the birds' normal behavior. It also stresses the birds, which could be a critical issue for migrating visitors who are only there to stop for a rest. These travelers need their rest to successfully complete their seasonal migration.

### The Never-ending Flock of Birds

One of the most puzzling displays of birds along the west coast is the vast flocks of small dark seabirds that usually show up in late summer. It's hard to fathom a flock of ten thousand seabirds all moving together just above the waves. The passage of these flocks can go on for hours. If you observe them closely, you can see the individual birds occasionally dropping for a moment to grab a small fish or shrimp before rejoining the mass. This wall of birds is a flock of Sooty Shearwaters. The size of the flock has earned the group its own unique title. A flock of Sooty Shearwaters is called an Improbability.

These birds make one of the most amazing migration journeys on the planet. They nest in the southern hemisphere on the islands of New Zealand. When not nesting, these birds tour the entire Pacific Ocean basin going up to Japan, across the Aleutian Islands, then back and forth along the coast of North America before heading south to Chile and back to New Zealand.

### Eagles on the Beach

I suppose it might sound odd to some people to talk about eagles as shorebirds but in the Kalaloch area, that is the most common place to find them. I've found several eagle nests along the Kalaloch Strip. They consist of a massive platform of sticks up to twelve feet in diameter and several feet thick. The families I've observed usually have two chicks. I can't tell the individuals apart so I don't know if it's the same couple every year or if different couples use a common nest but there are a certain nests that are almost always occupied. The eagles prefer less visited spots and most of the nests are hard to see if you don't know where to look.

Eagles are often seen gliding along the beach and perched on snags and sea stacks on the coast. I've seen them grab fish from both the ocean and the creek and they won't turn down a gull for a snack. I love watching the adults teach the all-brown juveniles how to fish. The young sit on the rocks and watch the adults, who grab a fish and bring it to the beach. The young eagles jump down and join in the feast. It doesn't take them long to try fishing, although their early attempts are often empty claws.

Although the eagles live in the Kalaloch area year round, they seem to disappear in late August and are gone for a few months. I'm guessing that they are headed for salmon runs in other places along the coast as the salmon that spawn in Kalaloch Creek don't show up until winter.

### The Hard Truth about Real Life - and Death

I sat watching a struggling bird on the beach one day when a visitor came up to me and asked if anyone was going to help it. I suppose that is a natural reaction. However, there was no sign that the bird had been injured by a human cause and the species was not endangered so there was no reason to interfere with the cycle of life. The visitor got very upset when I tried to explain this and said I was cruel and had no compassion. As we sat talking, an eagle came along and snatched up the dying bird. I turned to the visitor and as gently as I could, told her that eagle disagreed with her judgment. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Things have to die so that other things can live.

The beaches of Kalaloch are part of a National Park, a National Wildlife Refuge, and a National Marine Sanctuary. It is a wild and natural place where natural processes are allowed to go on as much as possible. Researchers catalog dead birds so that they can recognize the difference between normal mortality and a larger event. A few years ago the beaches were covered with sick, dying, and dead birds. Because of the research done by COASST, researchers recognized that this was not a normal event and did their best to discover the cause. All of the birds involved had something in common. They were all diving ducks that spent a lot of time floating on the ocean surface. It was later discovered that an unusual plankton bloom was the cause. But the birds were left to die, which angered many people. These birds were not endangered species and the population has since recovered.

There are times, if a bird is obviously in peril due to human actions, as in the case of an oil spill or being tangled in netting or fishing line, that biologists will intervene. They also get involved if an endangered species, such as the Marbled Murrelet, is at risk and something can be done about it. But as a general rule, nature is left to take its course. Humans are only observers here and life goes on as it has for a millennia at Kalaloch.

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## Chapter 7 - Where Can You See Marine Mammals?

It is challenging to see marine mammals in the wild. It's far more common to see small species of marine mammals like porpoises and seals than the larger ones. The most common marine mammal in the Kalaloch area is the Harbor Porpoise. This small porpoise is gray in color and grows up to five feet in length. Dall's Porpoise are slightly larger and have a black and white coloration. They are far less common. I once ran into an excited hiker who thought he'd discovered a baby orca on the beach but it turned out to be a Dall's Porpoise.

On rare occasions the White-sided Dolphins will get close enough to shore to be seen with binoculars. They have a classic dolphin shape but their nose isn't as pointed as the bottle-nosed ones. They are dark gray on top and lighter gray on the bottom.

It's even rarer to see the largest member of the dolphin clan at Kalaloch. Ocra, also called Killer Whales, occasionally move through the area but are far more common in the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. They are distinctive because of their tall dorsal fins and black and white color. Males have dorsal fins as tall as six feet. I have seen them here but it certainly isn't something to count on.

### Seals and Sea Lions

As you walk along the shore, don't be surprised to see a head pop out of the surf and look back at you. If that head is rounded and gray, it's probably a harbor seal. If you're lucky, you might get to see one out of the water. They don't haul out on sand very often but they occasionally pop up on the rocks where they rest like giant furry footballs, balancing on a small knob.

You might think this would be an uncomfortable way to nap but for the harbor seal, with its squat tight body, this precarious position offers a way to warm up. Like most other marine mammals, the harbor seal has a thick layer of blubber to protect itself from the cold ocean water. When resting on rock, however, the cold stone has a tendency to suck body heat so the seal wants to minimize contact with the rock, hence, the strange balancing act.

In early summer we sometimes see baby Harbor Seals on the beach alone. This can occur for several reasons. The most common reason is that the pup is already weaned and on its own, fending for itself, and simply resting. Harbor Seal milk is extremely rich and these pups don't spend a lot of time with their mothers. In other instances, if the pup is very small, white, and extremely fluffy, it's actually premature. In this case, nature will take its course and something will get a lunch out of the deal.

That can often be hard for visitors, especially in the case of cute baby animals. Harbor Seals are not endangered by any means. There are lots of them and mortality is natural. Neither the Park Service nor the Sanctuary interferes with natural mortality in animals that aren't endangered. The best thing we can do is leave it alone so its last hours on earth are at least peaceful ones.

Sea Lions are far less likely to haul out on the beach along the shoreline. They prefer the rocks much farther out. I was once on a boat with some friends and we motored around some of the distant rocky sea stacks off the coast. The lower slopes of each sea stack were crowded with California and Steller's Sea Lions. The large males are easier to tell apart as the California Sea Lion has a bulbous head. The Steller's Sea Lion is generally a lighter brown in color when dry but they are much harder to tell apart in the water.

One year we had several come up on the beach along the Kalaloch Strip. This was a pretty good indicator that something was wrong. Scientists from the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary came to have a closer look and determined that they were sick. I watched in horror as a visitor got too close to one and it suddenly sprang up and lunged for him. Fortunately, the animal was sick and not moving much. You never want to get too close to a sea lion on the shore as they can run quite fast and have really big teeth.

### Sea Otters and River Otters

Kalaloch is one of the few places that you have a slight chance to see sea otters in the wild. That being said, it's highly unlikely. Sea otters generally don't get that close to shore as they are true marine mammals and very seldom haul out. What most people see and think are sea otters are actually their smaller cousins, the river otters, who also enjoy frolicking in the waves.

As a general rule, if it's running down the beach, it's a river otter. Now if it's floating on its back just on the other side of the breakers, that's another story. River otters usually swim back side up, much like a dog. They will twist and dive but they don't make a habit of lounging on the waves like sea otters do.

River otters are temporary visitors to the ocean. They will swim and hunt in the tidepools for fish and crustaceans but they live on land in burrows near fresh water. Almost every year there is a family of river otters that hangs out around Starfish Point at Beach 4. They often climb up on the rocks and roll around on the mussel beds, either to scratch their backs or just because it's fun. They love to play and I never get tired of watching them.

An average river otter family consists of mom, dad, and up to six kids, although three or four pups at a time is more common. I've watched parent river otters teach their pups how to dig Dungeness Crabs out of the sand and crack open their shells. They have really sharp teeth, not something you ever want to get too close to.

Sea otters spend most of their time out at Destruction Island where the big kelp forests are. They have an intimate relationship with the giant algae called kelp, which is capable of growing several feet a day. The biggest threat to the kelp is the sea urchin. This voracious echinoderm and cousin of the seastar can eat through the holdfast of the kelp and set it adrift on the waves. The holdfast isn't a root but an anchor. Without this connection to the substrate, the kelp is doomed.

Fortunately, the sea urchin happens to be the favorite food of the sea otter. The thick pads of its paws and strong claws of the forefeet protect the sea otter from the spiny prickles of the sea urchin. Tough shells are no problem for this ingenious animal. The sea otter is a tool user who carries a rock tucked into a pouch of skin under an arm. With urchin in paws, the sea otter bobs to the surface, rolls to its back, and pulls out its rock. It smacks the urchin on the rock until it cracks open, revealing the soft innards. Some of the sea otters in the Kalaloch area eat so many purple sea urchins that their teeth become stained purple. A sea otter has to eat a quarter of its body weight a day to maintain a healthy metabolism. Sea otters spend an average of eight hours a day hunting for urchins, crabs, mussels, and squid.

In return for the pest control, the kelp forest offers shelter to the large rafts of sea otters. To keep from floating away in their sleep, the otters wrap the leathery kelp fronds around their bodies, tucking themselves in for their naps. They sleep an average of eight hours a day.

The last eight hours of a sea otter's schedule is reserved for grooming. This is vital to the survival of this aquatic mammal. Unlike other marine mammals, the sea otter doesn't have a thick layer of blubber. It relies instead on a thick, multilayered coat capable of trapping air bubbles. A well groomed coat prevents water from ever touching the sea otter's skin.

The sea otters at Destruction Island live in two distinct groups. The males live at one end of the island and the females live at the other. Females will seek out a male when ready to mate. Sea otters only have one baby at a time. The mother sea otter will stay off by herself until her pup is old enough to swim on its own. Baby sea otters are naturally buoyant and mom often leaves them floating at the surface while she hunts for food.

Just the fact that there are sea otters here at all is pretty amazing. Sea otters were hunted to extinction along the Washington coast a long time ago. The animals that live here today are descendents of a small number that were rescued from an island in the Aleutians in the late 1960's when it was decided to use the rock for a nuclear test site. The sea otters were captured and moved. They have since repopulated the coast of Washington from Tatoosh Island to Destruction Island. Their growing population is monitored yearly by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. There are now over 1,000 sea otters so the chances of seeing one improve every year.

### Of Humps and Grays

Two large baleen whale species pass the Kalaloch area, or sometimes even hang around for awhile, during the summer. Humpback whales have made a good recovery since the end of mass whaling. Those that visit the Kalaloch area spend their winters in Mexico and their summers in the Pacific Northwest.

Humpbacks average over fifty feet long with twelve foot long pectoral fins and fourteen foot wide tails. Their dorsal fins are small and located about two thirds of the way down their back over the hump that gives the whale its name. They are fish eaters and hunt in groups by creating bubble nets to panic the bait fish into swirling balls. The humpbacks come up under the bait balls with mouths open and scoop them up, trapping them inside their rigid baleen plates.

One of the coolest things that researchers have discovered about humpback whales and their feeding habits is that these baleen whales use echolocation like many toothed whales do. This allows them to find the fish even at night, which is important. They are here to eat. They only really eat five or six months out of the year.

We seldom realize that the humpback whales are visiting Kalaloch because they tend to stay too far out from shore. We can see their blow - the exhale of air from their lungs. The only reason we see it is that their blowhole is a small pair of indents in the back of their head, which collect water. As the whale comes up to breathe, it exhales warm air out through the cold water and turns it into mist. Imagine spitting out a little bit of water with a lot of force from your mouth while lying on your back. These whales can hold their breath for up to 30 minutes at a time but often breathe about every half minute when traveling at a normal pace.

Gray Whales are a little bit smaller, averaging between forty and fifty feet in length. Their pectoral fins are six feet long and their bodies are much stockier than the sleek humpbacks. They don't have a dorsal fin but a series of bumps down their backs called knuckles.

Grays are much easier to see at Kalaloch than humpbacks because of the way they eat. Gray Whales are benthic feeders. They go down to the bottom, usually on the right side, and scoop up a big mouthful of sand. They close their mouths and the tongue pushes the sand and water out through the baleen, which are quite fuzzy. Small organisms that had been living in the sand are trapped behind the whale's baleen and become dinner.

Gray whales seem to like the sand in the Kalaloch area, especially around South Beach. That's where I often find the grays feeding beginning in early summer. Some years they only stay for a week or two but occasionally they will stay most of the season.

Gray Whales are not as common in the world as humpbacks are. They are only found in two groups, both in the Pacific Ocean basin. The group that visits Kalaloch spends winters in the shallow, warm lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. This is where their babies are born. They generally begin to show up around Kalaloch in late April and early May. They leave again by late September.

### Dead Things on the Beach

It's unfortunate that the majority of marine mammal sightings occur as dead animals on the beach. Many people find it disturbing. Death happens and many animals in the Kalaloch area depend on this morbid feast, from the eagles and ravens, to smaller furry predators, and occasionally big ones. Golden Girl had a taste for dead marine mammal as did several of her cubs.

Visitors do need to remember that even dead remains are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. I once saw a ranger ask a visitor to return a whale rib bone to the beach that had apparently been planned for a garden arrangement. These bones eventually break down and feed even smaller microorganisms in the sand. Nothing really goes to waste.

It certainly is a way to get a look at something that we seldom see up close. I would have never appreciated the true size of a Humpback Whale if I hadn't walked next to a full grown one that washed up on at Beach 2 one year. I've also gotten to see an Elephant Seal, something rarely seen in the ocean in the Kalaloch area. If a dead thing looks fresh, it's good to let Park staff know, in case it hasn't been reported yet. Records of mortalities for marine mammals are kept just as they are for birds. This is especially important if it's a sea otter because they are endangered species.

The important thing to remember is that as these animals slowly decompose, not only do they smell really bad, but they have a lot of bugs that help in the decomposition process. It really is best to keep your distance. I have found that by sitting some ways off, interesting things occasionally drop by for a snack, making a dead carcass into a potential wildlife sighting.

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## Chapter 8 - What's with all the Driftwood?

First time visitors to the Kalaloch area are often amazed by the quantity and shear size of the driftwood on the beaches. I've encountered a few logs here that rival a city bus. The most common question I hear is where does it all come from? Having spent enough time on the west side of Olympic National Park, the answer is easy - it comes from right here.

If you look at a map of the Olympic Mountains, the rivers flowing out from the center look like a wagon wheel. Kalaloch sits between two of these spokes - the Hoh River to the north and the Queets River to the south.

As you drive across the Queets River, look toward the west and you'll see mounds of piled up trees that the river has stacked up there. Every year, some get washed farther down stream and eventually out into the ocean while more trees are washed down from the mountains to take their place. This process has probably been going on as long as there has been a rainforest here.

Once out in the ocean, the bark gets stripped off and limbs get ground down by the restless waves. The currents carry the logs outward but that journey is limited because of a large ocean current created by the spin of the earth and the shape of the Pacific basin.

Two huge ocean gyres collide on the west side of the Pacific basin near Japan and move eastward together until they get to the east side of the basin pretty much off-shore from the straits of Juan de Fuca. There, the current divides with the subtropical current going south and the arctic current going north. This current not only channels warmer moist air to the Pacific Northwest, but it keeps the logs that float down to the ocean close to home. The logs get caught up in the currents and are eventually brought close enough to get pushed into shore with the tide.

### Ocean Logs

The ocean is a giant chemistry set. When the logs are added to the mix, chemical reactions are inevitable. Trees are giant chemical factories when they are alive. The green cells on leaves or needles absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combine it with water in the process of photosynthesis. The end result is oxygen and sugar, a form of hydrocarbon. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere to be used by oxygen-breathing organisms, like us. The sugar becomes the building block of wood. Trees are carbon reservoirs.

Ocean water contains a lot of different chemicals but the primary ones are salts. When saltwater saturates the logs in the ocean, the salts begin to interact with the carbon in a process called leaching. The carbon is pulled out of the wood and replaced with salt. The carbon goes into solution in the form of carbonic acid. There are many organisms in the ocean that need this biotic carbon. It's important for some forms of phytoplankton.

The logs also act as life-platforms while adrift in the sea. Some invertebrates, like pelagic goose-neck barnacles, only live on floating objects in the open ocean. They create an entire microhabitat on the bottom of the floating log. I've found several large logs, freshly tossed ashore, that have massive colonies of these very soft barnacles covering them. These pelagic colonies offer refuge for certain species of fish that live far out in the ocean.

As the currents pull these water-logged life rafts toward shore, they are caught up in the circular motion of the wind-driven waves. Most of the waves we see are wind powered. Wind blowing across the surface of the ocean transfers energy to the water molecules at the top of the water column. These molecules begin to circulate within the column, transferring that energy downward in decreasing layers. The stronger the wind, the more energy it transfers to the water. The water molecules don't really go anywhere except in a big circle.

That changes when the water column is close to shore. When the wind is strong enough and the bottom shallow enough, the energy hits bottom and the column leans forward. Gravity acts on the column of water and pulls it downward. Breaking waves are simply toppling columns of water.

Objects on the ocean surface are also pushed along by the wind that is transferring energy to the water. Put a basketball on top of a stepladder and tip the ladder over. What happens to the ball? It falls forward. This is why logs, and anything else floating in the ocean that the wind pushes into shore, ends up getting tossed onto the sand. The logs are at the mercy of the wind and gravity.

These logs are very heavy when they first approach land because they are saturated with water. This decreases their buoyancy in the water column so they don't float very high above the water's surface. When a heavy ocean log comes in on a breaking wave, it's nearly invisible from the top. It looks more like a dark line in the surf. This is just one way that beach logs can be deadly to people walking on shore.

There are signs at many of the beach trails that say, "Beach logs kill." Some visitors think this is a joke but it's not. Even when the logs do come ashore, they can still pose a threat if the waves can reach them. During extreme high tides and storm surges, waves can easily move very large logs on the beach. I've seen people sitting on a log, thinking it was exciting to have the waves splashing at their dangling feet, suddenly realize their danger as the log begins to roll. Logs tend to stack up and slam into each other. Human bodies are frail by comparison.

### Beach Logs

I once heard a visitor remark that Kalaloch Beach looked messy. When was the Park Service going to come and clean it up? I didn't see any trash. When I enquired I discovered that the visitor was referring to the actual logs. While the logs can be a barrier to easy access to the sand, they are an essential part of the beach. Without the logs, certain beaches wouldn't be there. The logs stabilize the sand and slow the processes of erosion.

One of the most noticeable examples of this is South Beach. Some of the logs on this beach are ancient. They are usually hidden from view, deep under the beach itself. One of my first winters at Kalaloch, a huge storm with amazing swells literally turned South Beach over and dug out one of these ancient giants. It was a huge red cedar that had been nothing more than a door mat at the bottom of the main beach trail. Suddenly, it became a six foot wall when half of the tree was exposed.

Sometimes unnatural caves form when beach logs get stacked together like pixie sticks and buried in flat rocks. Pockets open up and create hidden dangers to beach goers. The yearly pile-up can create a different kind of hazard in the form of potential energy.

Winter waves are like bulldozers, pushing the logs and rocks into steep piles along the shore. Summer waves are gentler, and pull at the bottom of the rocks, weakening the base. Then add a couple of exuberant kids and you have a recipe for disaster. It doesn't take much to send these top heavy piles tumbling down on top of unsuspecting people below. The danger is greatest in late spring and early summer. The piles are usually balanced out as the season progresses but care should always be taken when exploring the rock and log-covered shoreline.

Beach logs provide a unique habitat for many plants and animals. Most animals found in the logs are just visitors that make use of the structure as a safe hunting or hiding place. I've encountered many small creatures while exploring the logs that stack up around Kalaloch Creek.

If you look carefully at the sand around the base, you can get a good idea of the different animals that might be nearby. Tiny footprints below the logs reveal the most common pathways used by prey and predator alike. Voles, mice, chipmunks, and short-tailed weasels are common visitors. Occasionally I'll find both Alligator and Western Fence Lizards sunning themselves in secluded spots within the logs. Larger mammals, like raccoons and river otters, use the logs for cover. Woodpeckers and other insect-loving birds scout for carpenter ants and termites along with a host of salt-tolerant bugs and spiders. Beach Pea, Giant Vetch, and Beach Carrot all thrive in the sands trapped by the logs.

People are drawn to the log piles as well. There seems to be some natural nest-building instinct that asserts itself where logs are present. I'm amazed by some of the forts I've seen over the years. Many times the rangers will knock these structures down after their builders have departed for the safety of others. These heavy logs are unstable and can shift like a giant game of pixie sticks. People have been crushed when log forts, poorly built, have collapsed on them. If you do have an urge to construct one, it's generally best to deconstruct it when you get ready to leave.

### Fires on the Beach

One of the biggest dangers to the logs is fire. This might seem obvious since the logs are made of wood but beachgoers seem to throw caution to the wind more often than not. I love a small fire on the beach, don't get me wrong. But it's important to emphasize the concept of 'small.' If you read the rules posted by the Park Service, it's pretty clear. Keep the fire smaller than three feet in diameter by three feet tall and keep it at least ten feet away from the large logs. That means the fire shouldn't be in the driftwood logs at all but on the ocean side of them.

There are plenty of small pieces of driftwood, although it tends to be harder to start. Remember, this isn't carbon-based wood anymore - it's salt-based. If I really want a fire, I get a bundle of firewood from the mercantile. I've watched people go through an entire edition of the Sunday paper trying to get a small stack of driftwood to start. I also bring a jug of water with me to put out the coals when I'm done. There's nothing that will spoil a barefoot walk on the beach faster than discovering someone's hot coals from the previous night that were just covered by sand. These coals could also flare up if wind blows the sand away and adds oxygen to the embers.

Another disturbing situation I've witnessed is people throwing things like bottles and cans into their beach fires. Salt-based wood burns faster and hotter than carbon-based wood. I've dug melted bottles from beach-fire pits. They can be deadly. I helped carry a little girl off the beach once who had stepped on a melted, broken bottle that had been buried in a fire pit. That really wasn't a nice way to remember her vacation.

It can also be tempting for people to burry uneaten food and trash in a fire pit. This encourages scavengers to dig in and draws animals to places where people want to be - not a good combination. It's not good for the animals to eat human food, either. If you're going to enjoy a fire on the beach, do so responsibly. Keep it small and soak the coals when you're done. Take away your trash with you.

The logs need to stay on the beach. I've heard people argue that if the Park allows people to burn them, why can't someone take a piece home for decoration. Even when the wood is burnt, the minerals released by the fire stay in the area. These logs slowly erode over time and the ocean minerals they captured are blown into the coastal rainforest. These logs are essential to the chemical balance of the ecosystem and the stability of the beach. Protect the logs and they will be there to protect the beach from erosion so you can enjoy it again in the future.

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## Chapter 9 - What Kind of Rock is This?

I have a confession to make. I love rocks. I always have, ever since I was a kid. From what I've seen at Kalaloch, I'm not alone in this geological love affair. People are fascinated by the shapes, colors, and other peculiar traits of the rocks along the coast. It's the perfect place to see the geology because the ocean keeps most of the vegetation cleared off the rocks.

The rocks on the coast come in a variety of sizes but they can be divided into two general groups - really huge rocks that make up the foundation of the coastline and considerably smaller rocks that lie on top of the foundation like frosting on a cake. In some places the rocky frosting is quite thick but in other places it's been cleared away to reveal the layer cake below.

The southern beaches of the Kalaloch Strip from South Beach to Browns Point are mostly the frosting. There are a few larger rocks that poke up like Kalaloch Rocks in front of the Lodge, but for the most part, it's predominately the rocky frosting that is visible. This rocky mixture of gravel and sand is a reminder of the powerful glacial history of the Pacific Northwest.

Everything changes at Browns Point as the large sandstone slabs become visible. The coastline becomes dotted with clusters of these massive mounds of rock. The layers are highly visible, especially by the time you get to Beach 4. The rock at the base of the trail to the beach is a huge chunk of multilayered sandstone and shale turned over on its side. Visitors sometimes have to scramble as much as 12 feet down this rock to get to the beach.

What's truly amazing is how immense this slab of rock is. On rare occasions, the waves will clear away the gravelly sand covering the layers. The slab reaches down to Browns Point on the south side and well beyond Starfish Point to the north. It's almost two miles long, which means when it formed, it was two miles thick.

Geologists estimate this slab to be between 12 to 20 million years old. The layers are formed by successive earthquake events that create the sandstone, interspersed by quiet periods, which forms the shale. A few years ago an amazing discovery at Beach 4 shed a whole new perspective on this cataclysmic process. The fossil of a seastar - the first ever full specimen in this rock set - was found by someone walking up the beach. It had a hard enough body to create this fossil, indicating that it was probably a tidepool resident that had been dragged out by the outgoing flow of a tsunami following a massive earthquake. It is a reminder of the potential hazards of life along the edge of an active subduction zone. The real fossil is on display at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington, but there's a life-sized model at the Visitor Center, which is open in the summer.

At the north end of the Kalaloch Strip, at Ruby Beach, visitors marvel at the sea stacks surrounding Abbey Island. If you look carefully at their surface, you will discover the sea stacks are red and green quartz, often called jasper. There is an arch in one of the sea stacks, the walls of which are polished smooth by the daily surge of the tide. The beauty of the intertwined colors is indescribable.

Abbey Island is yet a different and rarer rock formation. It is composed of volcanic breccia that was formed when magma broke through layers of sandstone in shallow water sometime in the distant past. The basalt rock has a green tinge due to the oxygen-rich water it erupted in. It's like a geologic chocolate chip cookie where the basalt is the dough and the broken fragments of sandstone are the chips.

### Kalaloch in the Bigger Geological Picture

Kalaloch provides a snapshot into the fascinating dance of earth's tectonic plates as well as more recent geological events. It's a geologist's paradise! The large dominant rocks, beginning with Kalaloch Rocks and continuing northward past Browns Point up to the south end of Ruby Beach, are predominately sandstones that vary in age from around 12 million to 20 million years old. They are part of a geological formation called the Hoh Sandstones.

This sandstone is fine-grained, much like the sand on the beach. If you hold a handful of sand up next to these rocks, you can easily see that they are composed of the same materials. These sandstones are very hard and dense. They formed under the weight of water and additional sediments that were pressed even tighter as the movement of the Juan de Fuca ocean plate shoved them into the edge of North America.

The earth is not as solid as it looks. The surface of our planet is a jigsaw puzzle of different-sided sections of crust that move slowly; some pulling away from each other, some colliding, and some rubbing against each other. The continent of North America sits on one very big plate. Due west of the Pacific Northwest is a small plate called the Juan de Fuca Ocean Plate. New ocean bottom, in the form of basalt, forms at the spreading ridge with the Pacific Ocean Plate about 300 miles west of the coastline. This plate moves east at about the same rate our fingernails grow. When the Juan de Fuca Plate collides with the North American Plate, it dives under the edge, creating a subduction zone. Geologists call it the Cascadia Subduction zone because material from the subducting plate is responsible for the formation of the Cascade Mountain Range.

By the time the Juan de Fuca Plate reaches the subduction zone, it's carrying a lot of baggage. It's a circular effect. Because we get a lot of rain, there is a lot of erosion. The eroded material ends up in the ocean and gets carried out on strong currents, called turbidity currents, which deposit this material on top of the ocean plate. Very strong turbidity currents occur during earthquakes. Thick layers of sand rush down onto the ocean plate and extend more than 100 miles out from the edge of the subduction zone.

In between earthquake events, tiny clay sediments drift down to the bottom and create a layer on the sand. Another earthquake adds a new layer of sand to this layer cake of sedimentary rock.

When the Juan de Fuca Plate reaches the Cascadia Subduction zone, these layers have been compressed into sandstone and shale over two miles thick in places. Some geologists believe that this may be the reason for the long intervals between earthquakes on this subduction zone. This very thick layer of sedimentary rock gets stuck, like the preverbal monkey wrench in the gears. Pressure builds as North America tries to push westward and the Juan de Fuca Plate tries to move eastward. Eventually the pushing match overcomes the shear strength of the rock and causes a massive earthquake.

The last such earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone occurred on January 26, 1700, around 9pm at night. You might wonder how we know this as there was no one around keeping a day planner. The native peoples of the coast kept oral traditions rather than written records. This information was discovered by an amazing team of geological and historical detectives in America and Japan.

The layered rocks of the coast tell part of the story. Sand found far up river channels provide more clues. The date and time were calculated from written records in Japan. You might wonder how people all the way on the other side of the Pacific Ocean basin would know about an earthquake here. They didn't feel it. The ocean told them.

Fill a dishpan with water, hold it in your hands, and have someone hit the pan on the bottom. What happens to the water at the surface? It ripples. Now imagine a dishpan the size of the Pacific Ocean basin. The earthquake moves the bottom of the ocean just like a person hitting the bottom of the dishpan. The water at the surface ripples in long waves call tsunami waves.

Tsunami waves are not like the wind-blown waves that break on the shore. They don't get the characteristic curl at the top because the force of the energy that creates the waves comes from the bottom. Tsunami waves look like a wall of water moving toward you. If you want a better idea, surf the web for images of the tsunami in either Sumatra or Japan. These waves have very long frequencies and can travel all the way across an ocean basin without loosing very much energy. Seismologists can estimate the time it takes for these large waves to reach a particular spot and backtrack from there to determine the time of the earthquake.

Using records from destroyed fishing villages in Japan, the geological detectives were able to determine the date and time of the last Cascadia earthquake. Evidence discovered at the Ozette Village near Cape Alava, which was buried in a landslide caused by the earthquake, supports the time of the night.

This event was only the most recent in a long history of similar events that go back in time over 60 million years at least. Walking along the vertical bluffs in the Kalaloch area, it's easy to spot older events that occurred in the past 120 thousand years, the estimated age of the glacial material the cliffs are composed of. Gray layers of sand ranging from less than an inch thick to several feet provide testament to the powerful walls of water that carry beach sand inland during a tsunami.

Back at the subduction zone, large slabs of sedimentary rock are slowly added to the edge of North America in a land form called an accretionary wedge. Millimeters a year, this material is pushed eastward and over millions of years, ends up forming a complex range of mountains we call the Olympics. The reason the Olympics are mountains and not rolling hills as they are farther south has to do with a wall of ancient basalt rock that once spilled out as lava across the bottom of the ocean. This material, called the Crescent Basalts, is now vertical and forms a circular shape around the north, east, and south sides of the Olympic Mountain Range. Well-known mountains such as Mount Angeles, the Brothers, and Colonel Bob are all basalt from this formation.

New sedimentary rock is forced inland by the collision occurring at the Cascadia Subduction zone. When it runs into this wall of hard basalt, it is forced upward to form the inner mountains of the Olympics, including the tallest peak, Mount Olympus, which is currently just a hair under 8,000 feet above sea level. Geologists speculate that at one time, the Olympics may have been twice as tall as they are today. The height of these mountains blocks the moisture-rich air coming in off the Pacific Ocean and creates the conditions for a rainforest on the western slopes, which cause the large amount of rain and erosion. And so the cycle continues.

### Frosting on the Geological Cake

When you see the Olympics today, even from a distance, the snow-capped peaks stand out against the horizon. There are still many glaciers and large ice fields actively eroding the tops of the Olympic Mountains. Geologists estimate that the rate of erosion currently equals the rate of increase so the elevation of the mountains is relatively constant. That can change with variations in climate.

During the last glacial period, large glaciers extended down the Olympic Mountains through the large river drainages. The Hoh River, to the north, and the Queets River, to the south, both had extensive glaciers up until about ten thousand years ago. These mile thick sheets of ice chewed up the tops of the mountains and carried away an amazing amount of material.

Neither of these thick sheets of ice reached the Kalaloch area. Their snouts, the terminal end of the ice flows, were many miles away. Out of each snout rushed vast amounts of water carrying a load of sediment many miles and leaving it in thick layers across the younger sandstones.

If you walk along the bluffs south of Browns Point, it's easy to get a close up look at this sedimentary material. It some places, it can be up to eighty feet thick. If you look closely at the material of the cliffs, you'll discover that it's composed of smoothed rocks surrounded by sand grains.

One of the most frightening events I've ever experienced at Kalaloch involved the mass movement of some of this material. I had been walking along the beach after several days of stormy weather when a large section of cliff suddenly let go. It cascaded down in a slurry of muddy water and gravel to cover the logs below. Fortunately the tide was out and I'd been walking on the firmer, wet sand. The event taught me to watch for the dripping trickles that indicate super-saturation of the glacial material - and never to walk too close to the cliffs in the rainy season.

Erosion changes the coastline relatively quickly. Heavy winter rains can cause super-saturation of the soils, which loosens the sand grains that lock the rocks and gravel in place. Gravity is the ultimate winner. The weakened glacial material spills down in slumps that can range from a few feet across to over 100 feet. High surge waves go to work on the slide and distribute the sand down the beach, leaving the rocks close to the cliff.

### Flat Rocks and Pretty Lines

The smooth, flat rocks left behind often draw the eyes, and the fingers, of beachgoers in the Kalaloch area. They come in all sizes from something smaller than a dime to a few that are too heavy to lift. Some visitors think the rocks are flattened by the constant ebb and flow of the tide. However, these rocks got their shape from the ice that chewed them off their parent rock high up on Mount Olympus thousands of years ago and brought them down to the lowlands.

Glaciers are dense ice sheets capable of slicing through solid rock and moving an incredible load of material from its point of origin over great distances where it seems out of place. On this journey, the slow progression under the weight of the ice, smoothes and flattens the fragments into stony discs. At the glacier's snout, this material is released in a torrent of water that pulls the sediment even farther away from its mountain home.

At the end of the last ice age, Kalaloch was probably around ten miles, or more, inland from the ocean. The vast glacial deltas extended outward from the snouts of the Hoh and Queets glaciers and overlapped in the Kalaloch area to pile up eighty feet of flattened rocks, gravel, and sand in places.

Not all of the flattened rocks look like the gray sand of their origin. Some have undergone metamorphosis on their journey to the top of Mount Olympus. My youngest daughter loved collecting all the stones with thin, white lines. She would arrange the stones on the beach, trying to match up the lines like some complex spider web. These thin lines are the earliest stage of change that sandstone undergoes under pressure.

The sandstone is composed of the same sand found on the beach. Pick up a handful of this sand and look at it with a magnifying lens and you'll discover that it's not gray at all but a collection of many colored fragments and clear crystals. Most of those fragments are quartz. Quartz, called silicon dioxide by geologists, is the most common mineral in earth's crust and it's one of the most durable ones at the surface. Because of its crystal lattice, this hexagonal mineral can outlast most others and forms much of the sedimentary material on the planet.

Quartz has a lot of interesting properties. One of those has to do with how it behaves under pressure. It has a much lower melting point than other minerals. When sandstone is squeezed by the upward thrust of mountain building, some of the quartz in the sandstone begins to melt. Over time, it changes to a milky white substance call Quartzite. This is the white material that makes up the lines in the stones on the beach.

The more pressure a rock undergoes along its upward push, the thicker the band of quartzite will be. The lines between sandstone and quartzite create weakness in the rock that ice will take advantage of. The ice forms the quartzite into smooth, white stones. If trace amounts of other elements, such as iron, nickel, copper, potassium, or manganese happen to be present with the quartz under pressure, these elements will color the final product. Iron produces a red stone, copper and nickel produce green stones, potassium produces a yellow stone, and manganese produces a purple stone. Mix a few colors together and you end up with browns, grays, and blacks. Collectively, these tinted quartzite stones are called jasper.

Some of the rarest treasures found among the stones on the beach are the beach agates. These are not true agate, which is usually created in a solution, but a product of volcanic origin from a most amazing place - the Juan de Fuca Spreading Ridge. A spreading ridge is a place where hot magma from the mantle wells up to form new basalt and gabbro, the foundation of ocean plates. This magma is extremely hot. Cold water seeps into cracks at the spreading ridge, interacts with the magma, and pulls silicon dioxide, as well as other minerals, into solution. The super-heated water rises back into the ocean through chimneys called black smokers. They got this name from the dark, mineral-rich water pouring upward out of mineralized tubes. The hot mineral water hits cold water and can no longer hold all the minerals. These minerals cool so fast that they form a little nugget of natural glass. These nuggets fall to the ocean floor and become part of the ocean plate.

Over the very long ride toward the subduction zone, these nuggets get covered in sediments that get ripped off during subduction, often carrying chunks of the ocean plate with it, along with the glass nuggets. This mass eventually gets pushed up to the top of the Olympic Mountains where glaciers clean up the already-smooth glass nugget. It rides the sedimentary ice slide down to the lowlands, becomes part of the cliff material, and is eventually released with the other stones to be collected and marveled at by curious visitors at Kalaloch.

### Holes in Rocks

The novelty I love most is a rock with a perfectly circular hole all the way through it. These pieces of sandstone have generated more speculation than any other I've encountered in my years at Kalaloch. Finding these holes in glacial material is an indicator that the originators of the holes have been around the Pacific Northwest for millions of years. And their descendents are still here at Kalaloch.

If you want to meet the makers of the holes, you have to wait for a minus tide and head down to Beach 4. It's hard to believe but an animal is the responsible party. On a very low tide, walk around the base of the large rocks north of Starfish Point and look for two slender shells poking out of a perfect round hole in the base of the rock. This is the only visible part of a Piddock Clam's shell. This has got to be the ultimate scaredy cat of the animal world. Starting a something smaller than the head of a pin, it settles on a rock and begins drilling a hole. This is where that clam will spend the rest of its life, slowly enlarging the space as it grows.

The marks of their earlier ancestors are also visible at Beach 4 on Bridge Rock at the base of the trail. These Piddock Clams lived here over 120 thousand years ago, before the last glacial ice age, when the area was a shallow tidal flat. As the glacial material extended down from the snouts of the Hoh and Queets glaciers, it covered the base rock and buried it, leaving behind the holes as a reminder of these early residents of Kalaloch.

### The Geological Wonders of Kalaloch

There are some truly amazing geological wonders in the Kalaloch area, some of which are easy to get to and a few that are a little more challenging and require careful planning with the tides. Some have already been mentioned but I'll put them in order here from north to south. There are three main areas that highlight some of the most unique geology of the Kalaloch Strip. These areas showcase the foundation rocks that average in age between 12 and 20 million years. Most of these are obviously related and were probably once connected to each other. When the rocks are similar like this, I refer to them collectively as a 'complex.'

**Ruby Beach** \- This is probably the geological hotbed of the Kalaloch area as it contains the most diverse geological formations. North of the beach access trail is a cluster of rocks near the wide delta of Cedar Creek. This creek changes its bed structure due to tidal forces so sometimes it runs north of the rocks, sometimes south of the rocks, and on occasion, right in the middle of them. Standing alone is a tall monolith, with two slanted openings, affectionately called by locals "Ruby's Eyes." Countless visitors have taken pictures of the ocean through those slits and many have sat in them as well. The most amazing thing that happens with this rock occurs in winter when there's a storm surge and a high tide. The incoming waves will blow through the eyes with amazing force creating two horizontal jets of water. I've managed a couple of pictures over the years but care should be take if you're after that shot as the beach here becomes a demolition derby of beach logs at the same time.

Just north of Ruby's Eyes and farther out in the surf is a large collection called Arch Rocks. The arch is located on the north side of the group and some years, becomes filled with gravel. The Arch Rocks complex is a huge chunk of red and green jasper. Weathering has made the outer surfaces dull but you can still see it if you look close. The best place to see this is inside the arch at low tide. I recommend a minus tide to be safe.

Abbey Island is volcanic breccia that irrupted in shallow water. The chips are primarily shale and sandstone. The matrix is greenish basalt called serpentine. You can occasionally find smoothed nodules of this material in the rocks on the beach. Please don't attempt to climb the island. This breccia is crumbly and sharp. It has a tendency to break off in large chunks, as evidenced by the clutter around the base of the island.

There are some young sea caves forming in the rock cliff of the mainland behind the island. This rock is also volcanic breccia. I often find large isopods, call sea slaters, in these caves. The females look like large cockroaches. The males are thinner and smaller. Some of them can be quite pretty.

North of Abbey Island about a quarter mile is a cluster of three rocks just above the surf line. These are large chunk breccia pieces that have some of the most amazing large chips trapped in them. One of the pieces is a sandstone slab and another looks like a chunk of granite, a rock not native to this area. It is most likely a result of ancient continental glaciation, similar to the granite nodules found north of the Hoh River.

South of the beach access is a large cluster of sandstone pinnacles, most of which are tidally influenced. These rocks are home to the tidepool creatures of Ruby Beach. At the far south point are the Ruby Sea caves. Most of these are shallow although one of them has a back chamber that can be accessed if the sand levels are low enough.

There is another sea cave at Saddle Point, about one mile to the south of the Ruby Beach access. This point is slowly eroding to form a sea stack. For the time being, there is no safe access past this point when the tide is high. There is a viewpoint just south of Saddle Point, called Destruction Island Viewpoint, where many people stop on Highway 101 but there is no access to the beach here.

**Beach 4** \- This area is one of the most beautiful examples of the layered sandstone-shale combination along the coast. Most of the interesting features are north of the trail access although, depending on sand level, there can be some beautiful examples just south of Bridge Rock. This rock alone is reason enough to make the decent down to the beach. It's like a geology history book with the pages clearly visible. Each thick, light-colored layer is sandstone representing an earthquake event. Each narrow, dark-colored layer is shale representing the quiet time between quakes. A geologist studying this formation told me that it takes about 300 years for one inch of shale to form.

As you walk north, keep and eye on the lower section of the cliff. About two thirds of the way to Starfish Point is one of the coolest formations in the area. There is an S fold in the layers that really stands out. It's beautiful to see and spectacular to consider the forces involved in creating it. The layers were compacted enough to keep their shape but still soft enough not to break.

Starfish Point is a rock complex thrust over the Bridge Rock Complex, which extends beyond the point to the north under the sand. On rare occasions, the sand levels will be low enough to see those layers and it makes the Starfish Complex look really tall.

Use caution when exploring Starfish Point. It's best to stay off the rocks here, not only because of the tidepool life that fights for surface space but also because of the surge channels in the rocks. Even at low tide, water fills these deep channels and I've helped several people over the years escape serious threat after they slid into a channel and were almost pulled out to sea.

**Browns Point** \- This area is not so much an actual point but a long series of headlands and coves. This is one area that is strongly influenced by the tide and can be very hazardous. The north end of the Browns Point Complex is actually the south end of the Bridge Rock Complex. I've only seen this section uncovered a couple of times as it is several feet below the average sand level. At minus tides, you can sometimes see a portion of it in the surf. The Browns Point Complex is pushed over the Bridge Rock Complex and becomes the dominant feature south of the Beach 3 access trail.

There are two points of access to Browns Point. The north side access is Beach 3, which doesn't have a real parking lot, just a long pullout on the corner. Some folks miss the beach trail sign, which has a small number 3 tacked under a trail sign. At low tide, you can usually access the two northern coves without climbing over any rocks.

This area changes dramatically from one year to the next so my descriptions here will be vague. There is a large, flat but slippery headland that separates the first two coves from the rest. This headland includes a section that the locals call the gauntlet. Some years, sand fills this area and you can easily walk around the headland. Other years, the gauntlet is empty of sand and impassable without swimming, something I don't recommend because of the surge in this narrow space.

Access to the south side of the Browns Point Complex, which is actually the more interesting side, includes a one mile hike. There is a small area to park just north of the Main Campground. This is one of the easiest access trails down to the beach - as long as the logs aren't piled into it. Do be careful of the black material at the cliff base as it is extremely slippery. It's the early stages of coal. During the ice age, there was a shallow lake here.

Once you make the hike from the parking area, you'll come to a cluster of large rocks in the surf line. Some years large logs collect at this point making access around this corner a little tricky if the tide isn't low enough. Always plan for the lowest tide possible when exploring this area.

Before you actually round the corner, check out the wall at the south end of the Browns Point Complex. If the sand levels are low enough, you'll find some nice layers of sandstone-shale.

The first two coves at the south end are fairly small. If the sand levels are low, there's a fine example of a 'frozen' turbidity current visible on the west side of this part of the complex. The wavy rock shows how powerful the force of water was. Watch the bottom of fast moving streams and you'll find ripples like this in the substrate.

The second cove has one of the most intriguing examples of glacial cement in the form of Browns Arch. I keep wondering how long this formation will be around. I've watched it slowly erode over the past 15 years and it's only a matter of time before it collapses. Over the past couple of years, I've been watching the next one form right behind it.

The glacial material has a high iron content, probably due to the presence of basalt, which is high in iron. The iron oxidizes into a sort of cement that bonds the sand and gravel into a basic conglomerate. So far, the arch has stood the test of time. Dr. Wendell Rau used a picture of this arch on the cover of the 1973 Geological Report on this section of coast.

Beyond Arch Cove is Long Cove, which has a couple of smaller insets. The south end of Long Cove involves a scramble over rocks, which brings you to the other side of the gauntlet.

No matter which of these areas you choose to explore, always remember basic coastal etiquette. Stay off of rocks occupied by tidepool organisms. Pay attention to tides, especially if headlands are involved in your exit plan. Never turn your back on the ocean as sneaker waves are called that for a good reason. Take lots of pictures but leave the geology intact for future visitors.

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## Chapter 10 - If This is a Rainforest, Why isn't it Raining?

Most of the people that visit Kalaloch come in the summer months, which is usually the dry season. People from far beyond the Pacific Northwest, who aren't familiar with our quirky weather, are puzzled as to why it isn't raining in the rainforest.

The first thing you need to understand is why there is a rainforest here at all. The rainforest belt along the Pacific coast of North America from northern California to Alaska owes the wet weather to a combination of geological upheaval and atmospheric circulation patterns. All along this stretch, the pressure of the Juan de Fuca Plate and the smaller pieces along Alaska have pushed up mountains and tall hills. As moisture-rich air moves in from the ocean and encounters this barrier, the air is forced to rise. It gets colder and the moisture condenses as rain. The taller the barrier, the more rain it catches.

The Kalaloch area is strongly influenced by Mount Olympus, the tallest point of the Olympic Mountains at nearly 8,000 feet. The Olympic Mountains are shaped like a rough crescent with the open side facing the ocean.

This natural bowl contains a very tight water cycle. If you could imagine a single molecule of water making the entire cycle, it might go something like this. Start with a water molecule on the surface of the ocean. The sun shines down on the ocean and energy, in the form of heat, is transferred to the water molecule. This increases the momentum of that molecule and allows it to escape from the surrounding hydrogen bonds that have kept it bound to the ocean. The heat energy is also exciting the molecules of the air, and as they increase their movement, they become buoyant and begin to rise. The water molecule catches a ride on the thermal updrafts.

The rotation of the earth, which creates a general west to east flow, combined with the movement of summer air currents from south to north, creates an onshore flow from southwest toward the northeast. The water molecule gets caught up in this flow. It's headed toward land.

Once over land, daytime ground heating creates an even stronger updraft and the water molecule gets pushed higher into the atmosphere. As it goes up, the air around the molecule begins to cool and the water looses some of its energy. It bumps into a dust particle that is collecting other cooling water molecules and the unique magnetic property of hydrogen bonds binds the mass together.

As wind currents reach the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, they are forced to rise very quickly. The water-dust collective, now a real water droplet, becomes part of a big enough group that it can be seen by humans, who call it a cloud. As the cloud tries to slip over the almost 8,000 foot top of Mount Olympus, the water droplet looses so much energy that it collides with even more droplets and becomes too heavy to be supported by the updraft. Gravity takes over and pulls the raindrop downward. Most people don't realize that the shape of a raindrop is not the classic tear-shape but a concave oval held together against the forces of friction by surface tension.

The raindrop collides with a moss leaflet and explodes. The dust particle and some of the water molecules cling to the moss but the rest, including our original water molecule are still under the influence of gravity and continue to bounce downward until they splash into a stream. The stream drags the water molecule on another gravity-powered amusement ride until it cascades over a waterfall and plunges into the Hoh River. The Hoh River, also under the influence of gravity, bounces over boulders and swirls around log jams until it widens out at its mouth and collides with a wave of cold saltwater.

The salty ocean water is denser than the freshwater containing the water molecule so the freshwater stays on the surface for some time. The water molecule is right back where it started, just off shore of Kalaloch, waiting for the sun to energize it once more and send it on another spin through the water cycle.

The greater the moisture content of the air, the more rain will fall in the rainforest. In winter, the air currents shift and more evaporation occurs around the warm waters of Hawaii. This moisture is caught up in the westward circulation. The jet stream can then pull vast amounts of moisture-heavy air over Kalaloch and upward into the Olympics.

On average, 100 inches of rain falls at Kalaloch. This increases to 160 inches at the Hoh Visitor center to over 200 inches of mixed rain and snow at the top of Mount Olympus. By the time it gets to Hurricane Ridge, that total drops to 80 inches. At the Main Visitor Center in Port Angeles, the yearly total is closer to 20 inches. If you go just a little farther east, to the city of Sequim, you're almost in a desert. There are some years that folks there get less than 8 inches of rain. That is a true rain shadow.

### Fog

One common weather phenomena that puzzles some and depresses others is the fog that blankets the Kalaloch coastline, especially in late summer. Just a few miles inland the sun may be shining and the temperature quite warm, but as you approach the Kalaloch area, the fog swirls around you and the temperature plummets up to twenty degrees.

I've watched the fog roll in off the ocean many times. Sometimes it's like a swirling vapor that creeps inland from the ocean. Other times it's like a shimmering silver wall. Coastal fog is quite different from the regular fog that forms over land. Fog needs two things to form: air that has dropped below the dewpoint, and something for the water to condense on, like dust or chemical particles in the air.

Along the coastline, the prevailing winds in summer pull moisture-rich air over a cooler current running from north to south right along the coast. This cools the air past the dewpoint. The ocean then supplies the chemical needed to act as a seed in the form of salt spray from the breaking waves. The cooled moisture condenses on the microscopic salt crystals and the wind pulls the fog inland.

That may sound odd to some who are used to thinking of wind as blowing from one point to another but that's not how wind works. Wind is air that is being pulled from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. During the summer, the longer hours of warm sunlight over the Puget Sound basin heat the ground, which heats the air above it causing that warm air to rise. This creates a small area of low pressure, which causes the winds from the ocean to get pulled inland. Kalaloch just gets in the way and is often covered by fog when it gets hot farther east.

At night, this process reverses because water holds heat much better than air does. As the air over the land cools, the warmer air over the ocean rises, creating off shore flow. This usually pushes the marine fog layer out after it gets dark. At Kalaloch we sometimes loose this nice effect because of that coldwater current in summer, which tends to bend closer to shore in our area. However, in winter we have the opposite effect and can have nicer, less foggy conditions, than folks in the Puget Sound basin.

### Morning Rainbows, Mistbows, Sundogs, and Sunsets

Light refraction can be magical at Kalaloch. It's one of the few places that I've seen a morning rainbow and experienced a mistbow. Because Kalaloch is on the west coast and our major weather comes from the west, it's possible for the morning sun to shine on an incoming rain shower and cast the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen out over the ocean.

Mistbows occur early in the morning when that silvery fog is just off shore. A very soft palette of color will arch across the fog bank like a rainbow hidden by a sheer fabric. It's a dazzling sight.

Sundogs are little miniature rainbows that appear in the late afternoon or evening when there are ice crystals present in high thin clouds around the sun. They can appear on both sides of the sun or just one side, depending on the clouds. These clouds are so high and light that they are almost invisible to the human eye.

Sunsets, when we get them, are seldom boring at Kalaloch. Summer is notoriously foggy, especially in the evenings. Sometimes we'll get lucky and the fog will lift just enough to give us a dramatic sunset. My favorite sunsets occur when there are storm clouds just on the horizon. The sun sinks toward them and paints a rich palette of color that no words could ever do justice to.

### Winter at Kalaloch

Having been a resident of the Pacific Northwest for a couple of decades, I have had the wonderful opportunity to experience Kalaloch in its most dramatic season - winter. There's nothing quite like sitting at the window of the Lodge restaurant watching massive waves pound the coastline during a winter storm. All of the huge drift logs are tossed about like toothpicks. Waves of water surf upstream along Kalaloch Creek, which has become a raging torrent.

Between storms, walking along the creek, you can occasionally catch sight a silvery fin as Coho salmon fight their way against the current toward their ancestral spawning grounds and eventual graveyard farther upstream. I've been fortunate enough to see an adult bald eagle pluck a struggling fish from the creek just a few feet from where I sat on a log. Tiny droplets of water from the wiggling salmon spotted my coat as the majestic raptor dragged his prize over my head to a nearby rock in the creek. Watching the bird devour his catch was a solid reminder of the circle of life that is so evident in this still-partially wild place.

It's certainly no time for a casual walk on the beach! High surge tides rearrange the logs daily and tide charts, which give estimates for normal conditions, are no longer helpful. The logs become slick and just getting to the beach can be a dangerous undertaking. The logs can also become deadly weapons if an unexpected wave tosses one at you. It's much safer to watch the show from the top of the cliff.

Summer visitors sometimes ask if it snows at Kalaloch, and it does, on rare occasions. It's magical to watch the snow fall on the beach and the results are just as fantastic. The log-strewn beach takes on a new perspective under a white blanket.

Sometimes large storms push in walls of foam that can be waist deep. I tend to avoid the beach at that point as the foam hides depressions in the sand and because its dead plankton, smells really bad when it dries.

### Changing Climate and the Future of Kalaloch

I have heard endless rounds of arguments concerning climate change while sitting around campfires with friends and family. I'm sure the debate will continue to wage on, but after all that I've seen here over the past decade and a half, I no longer doubt the reality of Global Climate Change. The impacts are far too real at Kalaloch.

It's not just the unpredictable weather conditions that the old-timers complain about now. It's the losses of organisms on the sandy beach and in the tidepools. Razor Clams are at risk from bacterial infections and viruses, Sand Dollars have become scarce, the shells of Dungeness Crabs have become paper-thin, and the Ochre Seastars are struggling to survive a wasting disease. I talked to a Park scientist who was collecting data from a device that monitors pH levels in the ocean near Kalaloch. The water is becoming more acidic, just as it is in other places along the west coast. This makes it hard for shelled organisms to pull calcium out of the water. If it gets too acidic, it could cause shells to dissolve.

Marine debris has been an issue along the Pacific since plastic and Styrofoam became popular. Scientists studying the Pacific Gyre's garbage patch now realize just how great the chemical impact of this material is on the plankton, especially the phytoplankton that is responsible for Earth's oxygen supply. I try to remove as much trash as I can while walking the beaches of Kalaloch. It's probably not much better in a landfill but at least it's contained. The Lodge has become committed to recycling so even when I'm staying at the campground, I bring my recyclables to the bins by the mercantile. Every little bit helps.

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## Conclusion

Kalaloch is a continuous panorama of seasonal shifts, monthly cycles, and daily rhythms. All of the myriad species of plants and animals dance together on a geological stage set millions of years ago that will endure for many long eons to come. Humans are but visitors here, some passing for only a moment in time while others return time and again to marvel at the natural world that seems so foreign in our technological bustle of everyday existence.

I feel fortunate to have paused so frequently in this magical place that it has become a piece of my soul. I feel as deeply connected to the threads of life around me at Kalaloch as the microscopic fibers of fungi that weave through the entire rainforest ecosystem and I realize that I, too, am part of that greater fabric of life.

My children have grown up exploring the beaches and rainforest byways, far from the fast-paced world of constant communications and over-demanding commercialism. I see their own sense of wonder as we gather together once more, but now with extensions of their own families. I delight in showing my grandchildren the hidden secrets of the tidepools and the treasures of the rainforest. As I watch my granddaughter giggling at the water swirling around her toes, I realize that I have inspired yet another generation to love and respect this fascinating and amazing place - a place called Kalaloch.

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