La Push & the wilderness coast.
La Push is about an hour and a half from Norma, our cabin near Port Angeles, and it's the drive we insist on. The Quileute coast is the Pacific Northwest at maximum — sea stacks in the fog, black sand, driftwood the size of trees. Go for the full day. There's no cell service, and that's part of it.
01First Beach
Right off the parking lot.
First Beach is in the village of La Push itself, home of the Quileute Tribe, and it asks nothing of you — park and you're on it. Black sand, enormous drift logs, sea stacks just offshore, and seals working the water between them. It's the easiest big-coast payoff on the peninsula, and in winter it turns into a front-row seat for storm watching.
02Second Beach
Requires the hike. Rewards it.
Second Beach is our favorite. A short forest trail — under a mile each way — drops you through mossy old growth onto a wide, wild crescent of sand with a natural arch and sea stacks scattered offshore. Low tide opens up tidepools at the north end.
Pack in water and snacks, and pack everything out. There are no services once you leave the trailhead, and it's better that way.
03Rialto & Hole-in-the-Wall
Across the river.
Rialto Beach sits just north across the Quillayute River — a short drive around via Mora Road. It's a different texture entirely: steep banks of surf-rounded cobbles and huge wave-thrown logs. Walk about a mile and a half north at low tide to Hole-in-the-Wall, a rock arch you can pass through, with some of the best tidepools around on its far side. Time it with the tide table or you'll be admiring it from a distance.
04Know before you go
The practical part.
Check the tide table before any beach walk out here, and give the ocean its room — surf-tossed logs are genuinely dangerous, and incoming tides can cut off headlands. Download offline maps before you leave Highway 101; there's no cell service at all. Fill the tank in Forks.
First Beach is Quileute tribal land, and Second Beach and Rialto are part of Olympic National Park's wilderness coast — tread lightly everywhere. Dogs: leashed dogs are allowed on Rialto Beach between the parking lot and Ellen Creek, but not on Second Beach.
A big day out, a quiet night in.
Norma, our cabin near Port Angeles, is the warm end of a La Push day — fireplace lit, dinner in the full kitchen, ten acres of alders between you and everything else. Sleeps up to four, dog-friendly.