The weather for the afternoon looked dismal in the south Puget Sound area. The forecast called for steady rain well into the evening. Wanting a little break in the weather, I looked around and determined that the rain would cease along the Washington coast. A perfect destination for a cloudy winter day.
After fueling up in Aberdeen, Washington, I checked the map for my first stop, located the Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in Hoquiam, and headed in that direction.
The road I chose to get me to the wildlife refuge traveled through an industrial area of Hoquiam and along Grays Harbor itself. This was my first stop of the day for photos and where I captured a few photographs of old pilings in the harbor.
Next, I drove to the wildlife refuge next to Bowerman Field (the local airport); however, I didn’t get out for photos because of the heavy squall overhead.
Once leaving Bowerman Field, I continued on SR109 towards the coast when I saw a “Public Fishing” sign along the highway that led down to the Humptulips River. I captured a nice photograph of the bridge crossing the river from the vantage point along the river.
Just past the Humptulips River is Burrows Road. From my map, it looked like this road led a little closer to the North shore of Grays Harbor.
Before even making it to the banks of Grays Harbor, I got a little sidetracked and photographed the still waters of Jessie Slough.
I finally made it down to the shoreline of Grays Harbor and found several vantage points to photograph Campbell Slough at low tide where it enters Grays Harbor.
Since it was getting late, from Burrows Road, I made my to Ocean Shores to photograph the last light of the day.
It was getting dark rather fast by the time I reached the beach along Protection Island (actually a peninsula at low tide) just inside the mouth of Grays Harbor. After parking, I walked a little way out onto the island and captured a few photographs of the beach. There were two people with surfboards braving the cold temperatures of the Pacific Ocean.
Before it was completely dark, I wanted to photograph the surf along the North Jetty of Grays Harbor. When I arrived, there was just barely enough light to walk out onto the slippery jetty rocks for a couple of photographs of the surf crashing against the jetty. Unfortunately, I failed to bring my headlamp along, which would have made navigating the slippery jetty rocks a little easier when I was leaving.
When I got back to my vehicle, I talked Land Cruisers with a couple from Bonney Lake (well, actually him) before heading back to the Puget Sound area and the completion of a great day of being outdoors photographing.
