Rialto Beach

Rialto Beach is a rocky Pacific shoreline in Olympic National Park's Mora area, reached by a short path from the day-use parking area. The ocean view starts about 200 feet in; giant driftwood logs and offshore sea stacks make the shore worth a stop even if you don't go farther. A paved picnic area, tables and accessible restrooms serve the beach. The beach is flat, but cobbles, sand and driftwood make the footing uneven.

The wave-cut arch and its tide pools are about 1.5 miles north along the beach, so plan on roughly three miles round trip before exploring. Check tide tables before you go. High water can cut off the beach route and force steep headland trails; the park warns visitors not to pass the arch at high tide. Dogs are allowed on leash only as far as Ellen Creek, about 0.8 mile north, and only during daylight.

Rialto isn't a broad stretch of soft sand. Fine glacial till was deposited here during the last ice age, while older marine sedimentary rocks in the sea cliffs supply the coarser material. That mix leaves much of the beach covered in rounded pebbles and cobbles.

Storm waves carry uprooted trees high onto the shore, leaving giant trunks piled above the high-tide line. The driftwood is part of the coast's character, and the same storms that throw logs onto the beach also shape this rugged shoreline.

Quileute ancestors traveled this wilderness coast by cedar canoe between fishing villages. Rialto sits near the mouth of the Quillayute River, across the water from First Beach at La Push.

Sound recordist Gordon Hempton called Rialto the world's most musical beach and made a half-hour recording here. For a photo, put one of the huge driftwood trunks in the foreground with the sea stacks beyond it; that gives both parts of the scene a sense of scale. The arch is a separate, tide-dependent walk north.