Tide pool animals in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington are bigger than those we see in more southern climates. The Olympic National Park on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula is a fabulous member of the US National Parks system. Sure, it doesn’t have the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, or the flash-bang dazzle of Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park, but for those of us who love temperate rain forests, rugged coastline, an absence of crowds, and a glimpse into what our country looked like centuries ago, the Olympic National Park is simply wonderful. Ninety-five percent of this US National Park is designated as wilderness, ranging from extinct volcanoes, to serene lakes, to countless unnamed beaches. It’s wild, it’s so green that when you shut your eyes you see orange, and it’s more than just home to a town made famous by the Twilight books. I love Olympic National Park; along with Seattle, it’s one of my favorite parts of Washington State.
This is a video taken at Beach 4 in the Olympic Peninsula. Beach 4 at Kalaloch doesn’t attract a lot of tourists, instead it represents what is finest about our national parkland — wildlife allowed to simply live out their lives, quietly going about their business the way they have here for centuries. I’m not quite sure why I’m so attracted to tide pools, but I find myself drawn to them — whether they are in Hawaii, along the Atlantic coast, or here, in the Pacific Northwest. The closer you look at tide pools, the more you see, and entire life cycles are played out in them, over and over again. From phytoplankton to starfish, to shorebirds and eagles, the food chain here is complete. Beach 4 may not have a “proper” name, but it does what intertidal zones and shoreline areas do best: support our important natural resources from start to finish.
The next time you’re at a beach, I hope you also take the time to poke around and get up close to the marine animals that make it their home. You might be surprised by the diversity of critters you find!
Thank you, Washington State Tourism, for hosting this trip.
It looks really great up there. Like back in time.
[...] – Washington – “The Hoh rainforest and Lake Quinault are spectacular and the beaches on the Olympic National Park coast are wild. But why vacation in Olympic National Park this year, in particular? Well, fans of Bella [...]