The short answer: The Olympic coast is a ribbon of wild Washington shoreline strung with sea stacks, tide pools, and telephone-pole-sized driftwood — and it hikes like nowhere else in the lower forty-eight. The classic walk is Rialto Beach to Hole-in-the-Wall (~3.5 mi round trip to a sea arch), with Second Beach and Ruby Beach as gorgeous, easier co-stars and the Ozette Triangle (~9 mi) as the big day loop. The one non-negotiable: carry a current tide table on every beach. A rising tide can trap you against a headland with no way around, and some headlands are impassable even at the lowest tide. Time your visits to low tide and evening light, and the coast is pure magic.
This is the world governed by the tide. The coast is a strip of wilderness shoreline added to the park in 1953, and it feels utterly different from the forests and mountains behind it: raw, moody, shaped by fog and surf and the twice-daily pulse of enormous tides. The single most important habit here is to time your visit to low tide — both because low tide opens up the beaches, arches, and tide pools you came to see, and because a rising tide can pin you against a headland. Carry a tide table, know when the water turns, and never round a headland without knowing the tide. With that respected, the coast is one of the most beautiful places you will ever walk. (Distances marked “about” are commonly cited figures; confirm current conditions at nps.gov before you go.)
This draws on the coast and hiking chapters of The Ultimate Guide to Olympic National Park by Leo Sotropa — every beach with its tide rules, timing, and the safety detail that matters most on this shoreline.
Read the tide first: the rule that keeps you safe
On Olympic’s coast the tide is not scenery; it is a scheduling constraint that can strand you. Rising water can pin you against a headland or a cliff with no way around, and some headlands are impassable even at the lowest tide, which is why the park maintains overland trails that climb up and over them, often marked with round targets on the trees. The rules here are non-negotiable:
- Carry a current, printed tide table and a watch for the exact beach you are visiting, and know the low and high times before you set out.
- Never round a headland without knowing whether the tide is rising or falling and how much time you have, and learn before you go which headlands require the overland route.
- Watch for sneaker waves that surge far up the beach without warning, never turn your back on the surf, and stay well clear of the big driftwood, because a wet log the size of a telephone pole can shift or roll and pin or crush.
- Do not swim. The Pacific here is cold enough to cause hypothermia fast, with rip currents and powerful surf. This is a coast for walking, tide-pooling, and watching.
None of this is meant to scare you off. It is the homework that turns a genuinely dangerous shoreline into one of the great walks of your life.
Rialto Beach and Hole-in-the-Wall
About 3.5 miles round trip, minimal elevation, roughly 2 to 3 hours, easy to moderate on uneven cobble, go at lower tide. This is the classic Olympic coast walk. From the Rialto Beach parking area near Mora, you head north along a beach of dark cobble and bleached driftwood, with the Pacific on your left and sea stacks standing offshore in the mist. Hole-in-the-Wall is a sea arch about a mile and a half up the beach, and at lower tide you can walk right through it and explore the tide pools that ring its base. The walking is on loose cobble and sand, more tiring than it looks, so give yourself more time than the flat mileage suggests. Time it to a low or falling tide, aim to arrive as the water is going out, and turn around with plenty of margin. Sunset is the prize hour, with the stacks silhouetted against the sky. Rialto sits at the end of the Mora road near La Push, reached from Forks, and it is one of the few beaches where leashed dogs are allowed on a portion of the sand (confirm current pet rules).
Second Beach and Ruby Beach
If Rialto is the headliner, Second Beach and Ruby Beach are the co-stars, and many visitors love them just as much.
- Second Beach — about 4 miles round trip, easy to moderate. Reached from a trailhead near La Push, it starts with a forest walk that drops through spruce and hemlock before spilling onto a broad crescent of sand studded with sea stacks and an offshore arch. The short climb back up through the woods at the end is the only real work. This is a sunset beach par excellence, so come in the evening and expect company on summer weekends. The La Push area also reaches First and Third Beaches if Second feels busy.
- Ruby Beach — a short forest-to-shore walk, easy. Farther south and just off US-101, Ruby is a quick walk from the roadside pullout to a shore of sea stacks, tide pools, and the pink-tinged sand that gives it its name. It is one of the most accessible classic coast scenes in the park, gorgeous in soft evening light, and it pairs naturally with a drive down to Kalaloch.
Both are short forest-to-shore walks rather than long hikes, which makes them ideal for families and anyone short on time. As with every beach here, aim for lower tide and soft evening light, wear real shoes, and give yourself daylight for the return.
Kalaloch and the Tree of Life
Kalaloch anchors the southern coast, a stretch of bluff-top beaches with a year-round lodge perched above the Pacific. It makes an excellent base for the coast, and Beach 4 nearby is one of the richest spots on this stretch for tide-pooling at low water. The quirky local celebrity is the “Tree of Life,” a Sitka spruce clinging improbably to an eroding bluff, its roots suspended over a hollow in the bank and still somehow alive — a short curiosity rather than a hike, and a memorable one. Because Kalaloch sits right on US-101 with the lodge and a campground nearby, services are closer at hand than at the wilder beaches, and it tends to feel less pinched than the smaller beach lots even in summer.
Want the full coast rundown, the wildlife calendar, and how to pair a beach day with an early Hall of Mosses at the Hoh? It is all in The Ultimate Guide to Olympic National Park by Leo Sotropa.
The Ozette Triangle: the coast’s great day hike
About 9 miles, mostly cedar boardwalk and beach, roughly 5 to 6 hours, moderate, a loop, tide-dependent on the beach leg. For a bigger coastal adventure, the Ozette Triangle is the coast’s great day loop and one of the most distinctive hikes in the park. From the trailhead at Lake Ozette, two long cedar boardwalk trails run out to the shore — one to Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the contiguous United States, and one to Sand Point — with a stretch of wild beach connecting them into a triangle. Along the beach leg you pass ancient petroglyphs near Wedding Rocks, a reminder that this coast is the ancestral homeland of the coastal tribes and has been lived on for thousands of years; view them respectfully and never touch or disturb them. The boardwalk can be slick when wet, and the beach leg between the points is tide-dependent, so plan it around a lower tide and carry your tide table. Ozette sits in the far northwest and takes real effort to reach by road, which is part of why it stays quieter than the central beaches — allow the better part of a day, and know it pairs poorly with anything else.
Wildlife of the coast and valleys
The coast and the neighboring rainforest valleys are also where you meet the animals. Along the shore, watch for seabirds, harbor seals hauled out on the rocks, sea otters rafting in the kelp, bald eagles overhead, and, during the spring migration, gray whales passing offshore. Inland, in the Hoh and Quinault valleys, the Roosevelt elk — the park’s namesake and founding conservation story — gather at dawn and dusk, and seeing a herd emerge from the mist is one of Olympic’s quiet thrills. A pair of binoculars is one of the most rewarding things you can pack, because most of this wildlife is best appreciated at a respectful distance anyway. Keep well back from everything, never feed anything, and give elk especially wide berth, particularly bulls in the fall rut and cows with calves in spring.
FAQ
Do I need a permit to hike the Olympic coast?
No permit for a day walk on any of these beaches. A wilderness permit and an approved bear canister are required only for overnight coastal trips, which are multi-day beach traverses timed hour by hour to the tides.
What is the best beach on the Olympic coast?
Rialto (with Hole-in-the-Wall) is the classic all-in-one experience; Second Beach and Ruby are the easier, equally photogenic co-stars; and Kalaloch’s Beach 4 is a tide-pooling favorite. For a wilder, quieter day, the Ozette Triangle is the great loop.
When should I visit the beaches?
Aim for low tide (for the arches and tide pools) and evening light (for the sunset over the sea stacks). Summer afternoons draw day-trippers from Port Angeles, so early or late visits reward you with more room. Winter brings dramatic, storm-tossed surf for those who come prepared.
Why is the tide table so important?
Because the tide can trap you. Rising water can pin you against a headland with no way around, and some headlands are impassable even at the lowest tide. Nearly every coastal rescue here comes down to someone who did not know the tide — carrying a current table takes you out of that story entirely.
Keep reading: The Hoh Rain Forest and Hurricane Ridge · A ready-made Olympic itinerary · The complete Olympic National Park guide
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