Second Beach — Friday, Jul. 20, 2018

Went for a 2-night trip, got there in the afternoon on Friday and left Sunday morning.  The trail down to the beach is a super easy one, doable for anyone.  It's about .75 miles from the trail head down to the beach, and the last .25 miles or so is downhill with stair-like platforms.  You'll have to climb over huge logs of driftwood once you get to the beach, before you can actually stick your toes in the sand.  There were a lot of people camping already on Friday afternoon and it just got more crowded until we left on Sunday.  It's a busy beach (probably because the trail is so short) and people get pretty elaborate in their camping - we saw pop-up tents, coolers, small barbecues; more of what I'd see in car camping. 

The amount of rule-breaking we saw down there was unbelievable, and pretty disappointing.  Can't tell you the amount of dogs we saw on the beach/trail, about 80% of the tents didn't have permits, burning non-driftwood, toilet paper everywhere up in the treeline, a couple piles of human poop that hadn't been buried...I mean, come on. 

If you are able to ignore the mass amount of people and rule-breaking, this is a great place.  It's absolutely gorgeous and it's always so relaxing to be on the beach.  Our second night was cloud-free and we were able to get up in the middle of the night and do some pretty great star gazing, including being able to see the Milky Way!  The mornings were wonderful; nice and quiet. 

Bottom line, if you're looking to avoid crowds, this is not the place to go.  It would be a great first backpacking trip because it's a short trail and you can keep extra food & water in the car to re-stock if you're doing more than one night (which is exactly what we did).  There is a natural water source, but it looked almost dried up and we just thought it was easier to get more water from our car.  There are 2 toilets - 1 is near the bottom of the trail just before you hit the beach; off to the right and there is clear signage. The other is not clearly marked by a sign, but does have a couple of orange ties to mark it; if you're looking at the ocean, walk left from the trailhead and it's maybe .2 miles down.  It's a very short, but steep trail to the toilet; there is a rope you can use to help you up and down.  That toilet is much more private, but the piece of wood it sits on felt like it was going to give out any day now, so be careful.