On the Beach in Forks, Wa.

The sun doesn’t shine much in Forks—it is the rainiest town in the United States, after all—but the mood is fitting for the type of place where you wouldn’t be surprised to spot a vampire coming out of the thick, dark forests. 

I don’t know that I really wanted to go backpacking, at least not consciously. The child in me was more interested in the trailhead’s proximity to the small town in upstate Washington where Twilight was filmed. The city is propped up by the fictional vampires who lived there in the movies. An annual celebration is held to honor Twilight and its author; a museum holds relics from the films  and a replica of the protagonist’s truck sits outside town hall. We stayed at a motel with an outdoor pool that sat empty despite the fact that it was July. 

I was 13, in the summer before high school began, and about to embark on a four-day, 16-mile backpacking expedition on the Pacific Coast Trail with my cousin, aunt and uncle. They were, without exception, more excited than I was. I was more concerned with if I could talk to my friends on one bar of Extended LTE service and how I would sustain my picky eating habits with backpacking rations.

Olympic National Park is situated in the northwest corner of Washington, less than 100 miles as the crow flies from British Columbia. Coming from Omaha, it feels like a different world there—a different country, at least. The air is thick with moisture and fog and the scent of the ocean. Waves crash into towering rock formations that stand hundreds of yards from the shore, creating an echo as the water rushes.

The first couple of miles are spent hiking through the woods on a trail leading to the ocean, where the real trek begins. Sounds of the ocean grow louder as the tree-lined path narrows and spits you out onto a seemingly endless beach, the deep woods you just walked through only a few steps away.

Many miles of the beach are made up of nothing but rocks of various sizes and slipperiness. The rocky shore creates its own sea, all shades of grey blending together as the smaller stones slipped underneath my shoes. Most of the time, a thick fog accompanied us on our walk. The greyness makes the sunshine all the more welcome. Most afternoons, even if only for an hour, the sun emerges and changes the landscape. The grey sky turns blue, and the ocean follows.

The temperature plummets as soon as the sun retreats for the evening. Day-trippers and backpackers begin to populate the shores, creating camps in the corridor between the forest and the beach. There isn’t much to do when it gets dark because the darkness is so all-encompassing. I was awake after everyone went to sleep each night, a habit that I still haven’t broken out of. I would get out of the tent and sit by the water, letting my body sink into the cold sand and staring into the open sky.