In December of 2002 my mother was down from Alaska, visiting for the holidays. At one point in her visit, I asked her if there were any particular sights she'd like to see while in Seattle, or any activities she'd like to do. She said that she'd like to visit the ocean. Not just the Sound that sneaks in around the Olympic Peninsula - an attractive but tame bit of saltwater. No, Mom wanted so see the waves and the actual honest-injun ocean.

I suggested that we drive down to Olympia, pick up Kelly, and then head west on Hwy 101 to the coast. Just before reaching the coast, a northward turn on a smaller highway that eventually re-joins the 101 takes you to a remote and beautiful part of Washington called Ruby Beach. Scot and I had stopped there briefly the year before during a sojourn around the Olympic Peninsula and were really impressed with the tumultuous waves, the eroding cliffs and the flat, round rocks.

A vote was taken, with "yea" being the unanimous decision. Mom, Scot, Mike and I piled into Kelly's 1968 VW Transporter bus and drove down to Olympia to get Kelly.

A brief aside: Kelly's VW bus is a story unto itself, but let me give you a quick synopsis. In February of 2002, Kelly bought it from someone she used to work with. After driving it a couple of times and being intimidated by how big and imprecise it was, the brakes went out and one of the tires went flat. The bus sat in front of Kelly's apartment building for several months. Eventually (in October?) Kelly had the bus towed to a VW repair place nearby. They said it'd be about $1000 to have the brakes fixed. At that point, Kelly decided to just cut her losses and try to sell the thing. The owners of the VW repair place agreed to allow the bus to sit around for sale at their shop for a while. After about a month, they asked Kelly to please come and take it away, as it had not generated much interest. Fortunately, at that point, Mike came down from Alaska and managed to get the bus running well enough that I could drive it back to Kirkland (sans brakes, which was a bit of an adventure). Since then, he's been working his butt off trying to get the bus in a more sell-able state. At this point, it's probably about ready to go. There's an idling problem he may tackle before we advertise, but other than that, it's as good as it is economical to make it. The trip to the coast in the bus was a little risky, I suppose, not really knowing what else was just waiting to fall off the thing, but it all worked out in the end. And now you know.

Having seen many trees in my lifetime - some of them very large - I was skeptical of this claim. I was skeptical of the sign! I mean, just look at it... hints at a new and sinister meaning to the term "tourist trap". Discussion ensued and there turned out to be just enough interest among us to actually make our legs move down the short and winding path to the "World's Largest Spruce Tree".

It was big.

It was huge!

It was about 1000 years old.

It was 191 feet tall.

It was 58 feet around the trunk

It had a 96 foot branchspan.

Or so said the little carved wooden placard nearby the tree.

So naturally, we had to clamber all over it and take photos.

In the small photo above and to the right, that's Scot, Mike, Kelly and me arranged about the roots of the spruce. It was a little slippery (the whole area was one big boggy marsh). The photo below depicts Scot, Kelly and Mike "The Ding King" dwarfed by the spruce. Looks like they're sitting on a big basalt outcropping. Hard to believe it's alive!

Below are Scot, Mike, Kelly and Mom.

The speedometer climbed to 50MPH.

Poor bus.

Suddenly, there it was. Ruby Beach is the largest beach available to you along this particular stretch of the 101. The beach itself is at the base of a bluff, which the parks department was kind enough to put a parking lot at the top of, and a switchback path down to the bottom of.

The limestone bluffs have eroded away in a curious fashion to create isolated islands of leftover bluff, presumably constructed of sterner stuff than the bits that wore away. One of the leftover bits had a couple of holes neatly through. Bisecting the beach was a freshwater creek which ran into the sea. Perhaps it was a stream. Whichever one is larger, that's what it was. Not quite a river, but definitely bigger than a freshet. Onward.

The beach was not really a sandy one. Most of the ground was covered with flatish, circular rocks; smashed flat by the relentless and often violent surf. Over the years, storm after storm had deposited massive logs along the high-tide mark; a titan's pick-up sticks. Warning signs at the head and foot of the trail that led down the bluff warned would-be-swimmers against so much as setting foot in the sea. Strong undertows and partially-submerged, surf-tossed logs waited to drown and mangle those foolish enough to swim in the not-so pacified northern Pacific.

Reading the signs at the head of the trail, I wondered what could possibly drive someone to try to swim in this body of water. Even in summer, the water temperature had to be well below tolerable. Halfway down the trail, however, a large island revealed itself detatched from the beach - forested and beautiful. The temptation to attain it and explore was pretty strong, despite the fact that it was winter and frigid. I'm certain that the urge would pass rapidly with the ocean at navel-level, but I can definitely see the urge being far more irresistable during the summer.

Below is a photo of Mike and Kelly, who had scampered ahead down the path and hit the beach well ahead of us. While I took photos and marveled slowly down the path with Mom and Scot, they made directly for the craggy rock you see in the background (not the island in the far background, with trees and whatnot - that one is inaccessible except by swimming or boat).

People who are in the business or habit of forcing computers to do their will may recognize this: the only phrase I can think of that describes this photo of Mike and Kelly:

"Last known good"

The tide being out, sevaral smaller limestone islands were accessible. The niftiest one, however, (which Mike and Kelly were making a beeline for) was separated from the majority of the beach by the aformentioned freshwater flow that made about 1/4 of the beach rather inaccessible. Stopped just short of their goal, thwarted by a 15-foot-wide flow of freshwater, Mike and Kelly make a sharp right turn and began racing upstream to disappear into the undergrowth. Last known good.

Now for some more photos.

Adding to the beauty of the sunset was the fact that out to sea, just in front of the setting sun, was a flat-topped low mesa of an island with a lighthouse on it. I snapped quite a few photos of the sun-sky-sea-rocks-beach-island-lighthouse composition, but I'll only subject you to a couple of the best.

The flat rocks on the beach invited stacking, as evidenced by several constructions here and there on the beach. Below, Mom succumbs to the siren call of flat rocks.

The next photo is my favorite one taken at Ruby Beach, which is saying a lot. You have to try really hard to take a bad photo at Ruby Beach: it constantly positions itself so its best side is toward the camera. In fact, I like this next photo so much that I'm also uploading a double-sized version of it, if you would like it. Simply right-click on the photo below and choose "Save Target As..." and save it locally on your hard drive. The large version of the photo is about 60KB and is called big16.jpg.

Nice, eh? And if you think the next one is pretty, you shoulda been there. Watching the sun set over the ocean brought to mind a quote by Douglas Adams, spoken of Fijordland, New Zealand, which struck the late Mr. Adams as "one of the most astounding pieces of land anywhere on God's earth, and one's first impulse, standing on a clifftop surveying it all, is simply to burst into spontaneous applause."

Below: Scot, surveying the beach; also, Scot and I peeping through one of two holes eroded in a particular limestone tor.

Below: sighting through a gap in the tors; also, a photograph taken through the smaller hole in the limestone tor above.

The sun is nearly gone...

And then the sun was down. Now we resume the saga of Mike and Kelly, who had disappeared into the underbrush perhaps a half hour ago. At this point, they reappear, on the other side of the stream. Slipping, sliding, stumbling but managing to keep their feet, they come charging downhill out of the dense underbrush, down the beach to the largest accessible limestone tor. They immediately begin to climb it and are soon out of sight on the far side of the tor. Scot and I amble up and down the beach a bit. Mom does whatever it is that Moms do when left to their own devices on a beach full of flat rocks in the gathering dusk.

After a good long time, Scot and I look down the beach and notice that Mom is missing. It is now well and truly dark. We wander back up the beach toward the foot of the trail that leads up the bluff and eventually recognize the tiny form of Mom out on the farthest edge of our part of the beach. That is, where the stream goes into the sea; also, as close as one can get to Mike and Kelly's tor without actually following their route up and around. As we get closer to Mom, we see that the tide has turned and is on its way back in. Then, carried on the frigid ocean wind and mingled with the sounds of surf abusing the rocks, I beging to discern voices: Mom's at first, then - so faintly - Kelly's and Mike's.

The words are indecipherable, as Mom has her back to us and Mike and Kelly cannot get their voices above the surf, but I begin to get concerned. Hasn't Mom noticed that the tide is coming in? Hasn't she noticed that the scrap of land she is standing on is rapidly being cut off from the main of the beach? Why are Mike and Kelly still out on the tor? Don't they realize that they'll be walking back through the woods in the dark? Don't they realize that the high tide mark is a good 30 or 40 feet inland from their tor? I begin to spew these concerns at Scot and, reaching an unspoken agreement, we begin to jog out to Mom's soon-to-be-island.

Scot, with his long legs, reaches the shallow water between us and Mom first, splashes through it and out to Mom. I see no reason for both of us to get our feet wet and wait impatiently for Mom and Scot on the beach-side of the shallows. Time passes. Faint wisps of voice float past me, but I can't make out whose they are.

The tide, as they say, waits for no man. It continues to creep in. What the heck are they waiting for? Hasn't Scot told Mom that she is in peril of getting quite damp? Before, it would have only been her shoes, but now it's approaching pants-dampening depth. And what is this hollering that's still going on? Finally, I can wait no longer and splash out to their island.

Well, Mike and Kelly are still out on the tor. Mom, who is visibly distressed, says that she's been hollering at them and receiving answering shouts but has only been able to make out the word "flashlight".

"Flashlight?" Mom shouts back at the tor. We wait a few moments and, sure enough, from across the increasing din of the surf we hear, "... murmur murmur aml shanny flashlight!"

I should now point out that, up the winding switchback trail to the top of the bluff, the bus is parked in the lot. The bus contains, among other things, a couple of flashlights. We, down at the beach, however, have no flashlights. I think briefly about how out-of-shape I am, the distance up the steep trail to the bus, the gathering gloom, the incoming tide, the worryingly opaque situation out on the tor. I take off my coat and long, trailing elf-hat, hand them to Scot, and begin to stride out through the waves toward the tor.

"What are you doing?!" hollers Mom. I don't know what I said back to her because that part of my recollection is immediately dominated by the surprising depth of the water and a startled curse. In retrospect, I should have expected it. It all makes sense: the fresh water meets and enters the saltwater, the current causes turbulence in the shallows and digs a channel in the sand making it deeper than the rest of the surrounging water. The only rudiment of a thought that I'd given to my route was a rapid sort of subconscious "shortest distance between two points".

The first couple of steps bring me in up to my knees. By the third or fourth step I am mid-thigh and can feel the currents tugging at my legs. A quick and worried glance to the left shows me an ill-timed wave. Just as it reaches me, I jump as high as I can (which is not very) and the wave sloshes past me at waist-height.

Much later, after this whole ordeal is over, someone will ask me if the water was cold. I've thought about it, both at the time the question was posed and now, as I write this, but I truly can't remember. Here is what I do remember:

I remember how slippery the boulders were, at the base of the tor. I remember how much taller the tor looked up close, and how steep and treacherous. I remember Mike and Kelly explaining, at the top of their lungs, far overhead, that this was not the side they had ascended, but that the way they'd come was now impassable. I remember how crumbly the cliff face was (for the side of the tor facing Mom and Scot, upon which Mike and Kelly were stranded, was indeed a cliff) and how it hurt my palms to climb up it.

The cliffside is not a sheer vertical drop, but worse: it is slightly concave. In the darkness, Mike and Kelly are unable to see far enough down the cliff to discern a good route from a bad one. They each have a separate route in mind, but are unable to convince themselves that one is any better than the other. I first try to navigate the route Mike has set before him. It is extremely difficult to climb and I have to keep moving, as my hand- and foot-holds crumble as I hesitate. Coming down it backwards would be impossible, and, less than three feet into it, I give up and slide back down the cliff face, shouting up at Mike to not take this route.

Kelly's route is much more navigabler. I climb it and then back slowly down again, with Kelly duplicating my steps. As she scrambles away across the boulders, toward the shore, I peer up again at Mike. He has inched his way over to the edge of the cliff, where Kelly last sat, and I can see his anxious head leaning out in the gloom.

Mike, for reasons unknown, seems to have worse nightvision than most. I, conversely, seem to have slightly better nightvision than most; with my contacts in, that is. Mike explains over the surf that he was not able to visually follow Kelly's path down the cliffside, so I climb it again to show him the steps and handholds. We quickly discover a problem: the little nooks and crannies in which Kelly's little size 8s and even my substantial size 10s were able to find purchase, are insufficient for Mike's size 14s. As he inches slowly backward down the cliff and I guide his feet - one at a time - to suitable holds, it becomes apparant that some of the steps will need augmenting, which I do with my hands, forearm and shoulder. We finally reach the bottom and join Kelly on the beach.

As we begin to walk up the beach, Mike, Kelly and I put some distance between each other, hoping that Mom and Scot, on the other side of the stream, can see that there are three separate forms and know that everyone is down off the rock and moving under their own power. Looking across the stream, I see a light bouncing toward us from across the beach. Someone has gone up and gotten one of the flashlights! This will be very useful for Mike and Kelly to find their way up and around the stream again in the dark. As I wade through the stream to meet the torchbearer, I lean down and rinse my hands in the fresh water, soothing my scrapes. I spend a little extra time slogging across, hoping to rinse some of the salt out of my leather boots.

The bouncing light slows and finally comes to a stop somewhere near the high-tide jumble of logs. I jog across the beach to meet it. It is Scot, who ran all the way up the bluff and back and is now fighting nausea born of exertion and worry. Panting and bent double, he hands me the flashlight. I tell Mom and Scot that everyone is safe now and that I'll be right back. I cross the stream again, bringing Mike and Kelly the flashlight. Grim looks greet me on the other side. "What?" I demand. Mike says, slowly, "I... lost... my phone."

Poor Mike. He'd just gotten that cell phone, not even a month before. While Kelly waits on a log, Mike and I take the flashlight and begin to scan the beach, backtracking to the tor. When we reach the tor, we find that the tide has gotten there first. I tell Mike to wait on the beach, and slog through the water to the jumble of boulders at the base of the tor. By now, there aren't a heck of a lot of places around the tor that aren't being hit by the surf, which narrows down my search. If it's underwater, then it's a loss. If it's somewhere up on the tor, then it's a loss (I am so not climbing that thing in the dark again). I search among the boulders toward the right side of the tor, until the surf forces me back. I make my way around to the left and search as far as I can in that direction, until the surf stops me.

Turning with resignation back toward the beach, I see that Mike is now about 15 feet further up it. The reason? The sea! Man, when the tide comes in here, it doesn't mess around. I hightail it back across the greatly-increased expanse of surf and attain high ground with a strong sense of relief. "Well," I say, eyeing the breakers, "if it's out there on the rock, the gulls have it. If it's out there in the boulders, the sea has is. Let's look on the beach some more."

We scan the sand and rocks as we make our way back up the beach to where Kelly waits. Suddenly, I get a Bright Idea. "I know!" I exclaim, "I can go get our cell phone, and ring your phone! That should help us find it!" I leave my siblings on the far side of the stream and slog across for the third time. Reaching Scot and Mom, I tell them about the tragedy of Mike's new phone, as well as my Idea for finding it. "But I didn't bring my phone," says Mom, disappointedly. "We brought ours," I said. "It's up at the bus. Could one of you go get it?"

I might as well have asked if one of them could fashion a phone from sticks and sand. Scot, who still hasn't uttered a single word since returning with the flashlight, gives me a look that clearly says, "If I move, it will be to vomit on your shoes," and Mom just looks blank. "Never mind," I say, prudently backing away up the beach with the flashlight, "I'll go get it."

I sure am out of shape! Much panting and gasping and sweating happens. I try to run in the dark, to conserve the already-dim flashlight batteries. This does not work. Eventually, I attain the bus, but as I reach for the handle of the sliding door, I realize something is wrong. The handle is missing! Only the base of the handle, with the key cylinder, remains on the door. Baffled, I open the passenger's cab door. There, on the seat, is the rest of the handle. Baffled, I try to put it out of mind while I search for the second, more powerful flashlight and our cell phone. I find both, but discover something I should have forseen: we are utterly beyond any cell phone coverage. I bring the phone with me anyway, hoping that I might be able to find a small patch of reception on the way back down to the beach but knowing it's so unlikely as to be utter fantasy.

As I feared, no phone reception presents itself. I admit the failure to Scot and Mom when I reach them, and give them the dim flashlight. Taking the other flashlight with me to give to Mike and Kelly, I encounter my sister, flailing her arms for balance, mid-stream. Her shoes are in one hand, socks in the other, and the combination of frigid water, bare feet on rocks, and the not-so-gentle current seem to be conspiring to bring her down. I splash out and steady her, helping her the last couple of yards to the bank. "Ow ow ow ow,' she chants as she winces her way across the rocks to a boulder and sits on it to dry her frozen feet. I leave her and cross the stream to break the bad news to Mike.

Disappointed by the death of a Bright Idea, but heartened by the brighter flashlight, we continue to scan the beach for Mike's small phone. Finally, it is down to the long, damp tangle of underbrush. Here, my resolve falters. "Well," I tell Mike, "if it's out there, you'll need the flashlight to find it. There's only one flashlight, and two of us. If both of us go, one will be in front, searching with the flashlight, and the other will be stumbling uselessly along behind." I give him the flashlight. "Good luck," I say, and abandon him.

I stumble across the stream again, in the dark, trying not to think about sharks and barracuda and other completely impossible but scary things. Reaching the other side, I cannot find Scot, Kelly or Mom. There is no glow of the flashlight to guide me and it is pitch black. Shuffling carefully up the beach, I listen for voices, hearing nothing but the surf. "Is anyone still out here?" I call. "We're here," says Mom from unexpectedly nearby - startling the bejeezus out of me.

"Is it just you?" I ask, since I can't see a thing.
"No," answers Scot's voice, "I'm here, too."
"Where's Kelly?" I ask, finally stumbling upon two dim silhouettes, sitting on logs.
"She took the flashlight and headed off that way," says Mom.
TO BE CONTINUED....