Second Beach

Author's Comments

The walk in matters. Three quarters of a mile through Sitka spruce and salal, the trail dropping steeply enough that you feel the descent in your knees, and then the forest opens and the Pacific is suddenly there, wide and grey and full of stacks. The Quillayute Needles do not announce themselves so much as resolve out of whatever weather is happening that afternoon. In fog they are silhouettes. In clear light they are sculptural and almost too perfect, the kind of composition that makes you suspicious of your own luck. I prefer this beach in late September. The summer fog has not entirely retreated, and the evenings come earlier and softer. Golden hour here is not the warm theatrical gold of the desert. It is cooler, more silver than yellow, the sun sitting behind a marine layer that turns the whole beach into a long exposure waiting to happen. Bring a tripod. Bring a graduated filter if you still use them. Time your walk so you are on the sand at least an hour before sunset, because the tidepools at the south end of the beach reward slow looking, and the stacks read differently as the tide moves. The walk back up in the dark is its own thing. Headlamp, trekking poles, the smell of cedar and salt mixing as you climb away from the surf. I have done it a half dozen times and I still misjudge how long it takes. That is part of the deal here. The beach asks for your whole evening, and what you bring back is rarely the photograph you planned and almost always something better.

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