Beach Combing to the Tree of Life

In late January 2026, Morgan and I spent a night at Kalaloch Lodge in Olympic National Park. The next morning we ventured onto the expansive sand beach that the Kalaloch bluffs overlook, in search of the Tree of Life.

The stairway to the beach at the lodge was closed for repairs, so we hiked the short distance to the Kalaloch Campground and took one of the several stairways provided there. At the bottom, we had to clamber over quite a jumble of driftwood logs, and then teeter across a beautiful but ankle-turning layer of fist-sized, wave-smoothed rocks, to access the beach.

On the firm, flat sand, we followed the trail of a fat-tired bike through scatterings of crab carapaces. One crab shell rested near an opened razor clam in a way that suggested a comical face and added a pop of color to all the shades of gray.

We saw numerous sand dollars, a little smaller than the palm of my hand, in various states of wholeness.

Other treasures included a shrimp, and what looked like an impression it had made; a washed-up jelly; and colorful razor clam shells.

At last we reached the Tree of Life, a Sitka spruce that has for decades managed to defy gravity and time, tide and weather, growing with much of its root system suspended in air between two eroding bluffs. Standing close to this living symbol of resilience, I could hear water running steadily somewhere on its landward side, while on its other side the surf boomed onto the beach. Struck by the symbolism of this plant resisting the very forces of nature that have so dramatically shaped it, I spent quite a bit of time trying to frame a worthy portrait of it.

On the way back we used a different staircase to exit the beach. The wall of logs and rocks engineered to armor the staircase against waves was battered and eroded. I stopped halfway up and imagined what it would be like to stand there during a storm. I could almost feel the stairs shake, with cold surf crashing over and through the barrier, and enormous driftwood logs bashing against it.

I left the beach believing the stairs will stand for a while longer, giving us puny humans access to this wondrous stretch of beach. But, as with the Tree of Life itself, the endless ebb and flow of the ocean will eventually win.