One of the most beautiful and relaxing trips I have been to. It took a while to get there from Seattle (more than 6 hours, including ferry wait, buying permits, etc), but it was well worth it. The Bainbridge ferry turned out to have less waiting time than the Kingston ferry. The new trail to the beach isn't open officially, but Makah Indian Reservation people say it's OK to use. Definitely more varied and interesting than the old muddy slog I had heard about.

We got our backcountry permit from the Wilderness Info Center in Port Angeles, our recreational use permit from the big grocery store in Makah Village Center, and our parking slip from the private house half a mile before the trailhead where we parked.

No bug problems. No high winds. We camped on the beach, though there were some better sheltered sites near North and South ends of the beach (where most people were, and we didn't want to be). Be mindful of rising tide if you go across the Point of Arches to, say, the view point a mile or so South and up the marked trail with hanging ropes.

Ashish and Rashmi

July 26-27, 2003

The new trail to Shi Shi beach is open! I hadn't been there before, so I don't know if it's really longer than the last one, but it seemed like it was about 2 miles to the beach. Don't make the same mistake we did. When you get to the old road, go right. Otherwise, you'll make a nice circle.

The trail was very muddy. Bugs weren't too bad. I noticed a lot at the campsite on the first night, but I didn't see many on night 2. I loaded up with deet and was never bitten.

There are a number of nice campsites down the beach about 1 mile towards point of the arches. There are a couple before Petroleum Creek, and more afterwards.

I would certainly recommend doing this as a long weekend. We took the 12:55 Edmonds Ferry, and got to the trailhead about 5:30 and to the campspot around 7:30. We got back to Seattle at 8:30 after leaving our campsite at 11 or so.

Don't forget to buy a tribal recreational permit for parking. We got ours at the market, but they appear to be for sale at other locations. Also, you are supposed to pay to park at the trailhead. We didn't, and were lucky. There is no kiosk at the trailhead, but there is one back about a mile near where the old trail started. Apparently, you are supposed to pay there. You will see the sign on the left as you are going in.

Thanks to this invaluable website, I had been forewarned of an impending trail closure for the hike to Shi Shi Beach across Makah land. A phone call to Makah offices confirmed that as of next weekend (July 27), the trail will be CLOSED for several weeks for maintainance. So call before you go!

You should allow a good five hours from Seattle. Don't make my mistake of thinking that Saturday AM will be a quicker wait for the Edmonds ferry - not on a perfect July weekend it won't be! At least, thanks to cell phones, the line cheaters were turned in and thrown out by drivers calling the Edmunds cops, but even with those jerks gone, it still was a good 1 1/2 wait we hadn't counted on. What with the slow roads west of PA, we didn't pull into Neah Bay until 4 PM.

The trailhead to Shi Shi is found by heading south from Neah Bay on the well-paved road to the Fish Hatchery. Just before the Hatchery, when you see a house on your left with a front yard full of late-model cars and SUVs(in stark contrast to the beat-up jobs and pickups in most everyone else's front yards), pull in and park. The pay envelope and instructions are on the front door of the house. $5/day, no vandalism.

It's about 1/2 mile further up the road to the trailhead, a large steel gate. The trail to Shi-shi is marked on my old map as a road parallel to the beach, and the trail was obviously a logging road in a previous life. You go through some pretty woods on your way to the beach, listening to the surf crashing on the rocks below. It's dead level until the STEEP last bit down to the sand, and the big, spring-fed mudholes (why is there so much muddy terrain on the beach cliffs in the NW?) are apparently scheduled for boardwalks as part of the Makah upgrade. I'd call it 2 miles plus to the beach.

On a perfect clear warm weekend in high summer, there were a dozen other parties camped on the beach - one party had 8 tents. Unlike 3rd beach, most of the backpackers I saw came to camp right at Shi-Shi, rather than hike down the coast. It's a lot easier - anything to the south requires a reservation with the NPS, and more planning than I'm usually capable of.

Shi Shi itself is a classic NW coast beach, with picturesque seastacks anchoring the 2-mile crescent both north and south - the southern group being the famous Point of the Arches. Petroleum Creek, about 2/3 of the way down the beach, is in the center of the densest concentration of campsites. It's also a pretty damn scenic place to get water.

Because Shi Shi Beach is a destination in itself, it had a collection of some of the most developed rustic campsites I've ever seen. They have obviously been built on and elaborated over the years, perhaps by the same people returning to a favorite spot. Our hidden campsite had a rope to help haul you up from the beach into the woods, and multiple levels for tents and food storage. The driftwood kitchen table had a great view of the beach, and the various surrounding driftwood benches were convenient for seating and equipment. The bear wire worked great. Other campsites were even more elaborate, with driftwood picnic tables, shelving units, lawn chairs, even privies. Think, forest-people beach colony.

Fellow beach residents included a full range of temporary urban refugees, looking a little odd on this primeval beach. I saw joggers, frisbee players, driftwood sculptors, even two surfers in wet suits, who either floated in their gear on a Zodiac or did one of the more masochistic backpacks in history.

And speaking of Zodiacs, Carey the cheerful NPS ranger who was camped next to us said that that's what it takes to haul out the hundreds of trash bags she and the other rangers collect from the beach every summer and stash in the woods. Every August the Coast Guard sends a ship to ferry the trash back to ""civilization"", and perhaps issue a few citations to the Panamanian-registered freighters who tossed most of it overboard in the first place.

It was amazing to be on the outer beach in clear, hot weather - no fog, no mist, no rain. How often is that? Vancouver Island was so clear you could see the logging roads in the clearcuts, and the coast was visible all the way north to Bamfield and Uculet, location of their national park. It wasn't a good time for migrating whales, but we did have lots of eagle and tame deer action, and the swarms of beach-loafing gulls were in epic numbers.

Fearing an epic ferry line, we didn't leave the beach till 5:30 PM Sunday. We ate a smoked salmon dinner off a paper plate in the backyard of a gentleman with a little home business in Neah Bay, and talked fishing with his buddies who were tending their salmon in his backyard smokehouse. We didn't get out of there till eight, but what was the hurry? We caught the redeye out of Bainbridge no problem, and hit the sack at 1 AM feeling pleased with ourselves and ready to get back out into the NW outdoors while the getting is good.

This isn't a ""trip report"" per se as I did not actually hike this trail, but a phone call to the Makah Tribal Council revealed some news of interest, both good and bad. The bad news is that the Makah trailhead, which has been officially closed but unofficially open, is slated to be closed completely sometime this month. The good news is that the closure is in order to construct the long-awaited private property bypass. The currently estimated completion date is in the October time frame.