Rialto beach is a very special place for me. When I can get out there, I like to catch the low tide and hike through Hole-in-the-Rock. Usually, low tide is either very early in the morning, or very late at night and since it’s not safe to walk around in the dark out there (slippery, treacherous rocks and tidepools), I always go in the morning.
This time, we started the 1-mile hike about 2 hours before low tide. I always give myself plenty of time because, even though it’s only a mile, hiking on loose rock and sand can be slow going. I needn’t have worried though – it was a very low spring tide. in fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever been out when the tide was so low. We were able to walk on compacted sand that is usually underwater making it a much faster, easier hike. We also got to see many more of the tide pools than we normally would have! Even better, because we got out so early, we got to see the sunrise and have the beach to ourselves for almost the whole hike.
Usually, when I get to Hole-in-the-Rock, there’s still some water splashing about and I have to do a bit of climbing and crawling to avoid a dunking. Even more importantly, I usually only get about one or two hours to play on the other side before the tide starts to move back in and we have to go through or be stuck on the far side. The high tides here regularly cover the entire hole so that it’s hard to even locate the right spot.
Today, the rocks were totally clear of water and dry enough to walk without any worry of slipping. in fact, the tide was still going out. We actually stayed for several hours and walked back through well before the water level was anywhere close to getting high.
This hermit crab is amazing! If you look closely, you can see there’s actually several crabs moving around in this one pool. I love how, the longer you look into a tide pool (very quietly), the more you can see.
Erica Lauer Vose 