Mission Accomplished!!

Mom and I went on the 9.5 mile hike again yesterday. The 1st 3.2 miles consists of boardwalks, gravel & mud. Some easy ups and downs, nothing too steep or difficult really. "Watch your step" is an understatement when referring to the boardwalks though because they are slick as ice when wet and, of course, we're in rainforest country so they were wet! We were both prepared with 'spikes' attached to the bottoms of our shoes so no slipping occured ;) I was in the lead at Mom's insistance & she assured me she would speak up if I was going too fast. (My stride is a bit longer than hers-I'm not a speed demon or anything!) About 45min into the first leg of the hike we came to the meadow in which there are hundreds of wild azaleas lining the path. Unfortunately, there were very few blooms as of yet. Multiple elephant ________? plants were noted as well with their enormous leaves and yellow 'flowers'. Neat stuff. I asked Mom periodically if she was doing okay & she answered, "yeah," every time except once when we were almost to the beach. Uh-oh! Not the best time to realize you might not make it! :/
I had great faith in her! I let her know that it would be okay if we needed to head back, but she wanted to at least see the beach, so we continued on. Once we crested the hill that leads down to the beach we caught the spectacular view of the mighty Pacific! Regardless how many times I see it, it takes my breath away every time. We stopped at the bottom where we found a spot to re-fuel and take in the beauty. Mom changed her shoes, decided she could make it, and off we went down the beach. It was just after low tide which meant the tide was coming back in, but atmospheric pressure was low, so we had time, right?

I swung wide out on the rocks, among the tide pools and sea stacks. I searched every surface I came across. Mom stayed on shore and searched the rocks there. Finally, she yelled and I came running.

It was a false alarm, so we kept going. Shortly thereafter.....SUCCESS!! I saw the first petroglyph I've EVER seen!
 

I don't know why I am so fascinated by these carvings but I am! A little history left for us on the rocks

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Once we spent (too much) time scrambling around the rocks to see as many as we could, we continued along the beach.

The top of one of the sea stacks kept 'moving' & we assumed it was a bird or two (there are so many) up there...but as we got closer we saw that it was actually deer! 4 black tails, 1 little buck, a doe and 2 fawns. They didn't seem to be bothered by us at all. I was so tempted to walk up and try to pet one, but I have a healthy respect for wildlife and the danger involved, so I refrained. We snacked as we watched them for (too long) a while, then onward!

So, all the fascinating little stops had us pushing the envelope with the tide. It was coming in fast and the beach was shrinking. There were a couple spots I anticipated having to go inland to pass. The first was no big deal, just a short up & over. The second, however, was a different story! It was so steep that they had a large rope (with knots tied in it every 2 feet or so) connected to a tree at the top of the hill to assist as we scaled the side of this mountain! Looks were deceiving as we peered up the hill...believing that the top is the furthest point we can actually see from ground zero...not true! Once we got to THAT point, we saw that we were only actually 1/2 way up! We both figured that once we got to the top, the trail would just continue from there. Another not true! Going down the other side was the only option and it was steeper than the way up. We 'repelled' back down to the beach. Needless to say, we both survived it, but it definitely zapped major energy! 

***If you look really closely at this picture, just to the right of the tree trunk you see toward the top of the pic there's a little bitty blue blob--that's Mom repelling down!***

The only other snag we ran into was the area just before reaching sandy point where driftlogs were covering the entire visible beach area so we had to navigate through them and try not to slip through the cracks :)

We took turns taking well deserved hot showers once we got back to the house and had an awesome dinner of sushi and dessert of hot-fudge banana sundaes!

It was the 3rd time I've gone in search of those petroglyphs and having Mom there to experience it with me was awesome. All 9.5 miles was well worth it! Mission Accomplished!