While Forks and La Push Beach are famously linked to the Twilight franchise, it’s was first Quileute land and home to the west side of Olympic National Park. To sum it up simply, the Olympic Peninsula is a mossy forest wonderland. There are very few roads and even less towns outside of tribal lands so make sure you come packed with all your essentials, its small grocers and gas stations that fill in the supply needs once you get west of Port Angeles. Forks is a small town lined with coffee drive throughs like Shot in the Dark and Mocha Motion and crowded stops highlighting the Twilight franchise. It’s crazy that it’s been 20 years since the first novel was released but the fandom still show out, including the DillerTime matriarch. Vince and the boys still enjoy it but begrudgingly so since it’s a romantic action series but we can all get our diamond skin or inner wolf on as we hike through the forest. While the novels used these Washington spots the actual film locations were majority in Oregon, where we were last month around the Columbia Gorge. The Quileute people are here in La Push though so much of the geography involved in the novels is loosely accurate for this side of the Olympic Peninsula.

While we played with the Twilight theme throughout this stop, including some pics below, we MUST impress how amazing the La Push beaches were for our stay. The Forks area gets the most average rain in the lower 48 (pictured rain gauge below) so the theme of cloudy skies for the Cullen Family to keep their vampire diamond skin from gleaming actually fits. Our planned 5 day stop was forecast for have rain everyday but we quickly found out that La Push, while only 13 miles from Forks can experience very different weather due to the Pacific currents. Our forecast 4 days of rain ended up being largely beautiful with mixed rain but we got some stunning sunsets and clear nights… at 9:21pm. We’ve struggled to adjust to the long days and often found ourselves coming home after 10pm and wondering why it was so light at 5am. Welcome Summer Solstice north of the 48th parallel. All the more time to explore and enjoy those cold beaches and hikes through the woods. Peyton made some more wood carving crafts and fashioned a Harry Potter style magic wand and we got some amazing beach rocks to polish up for our lapidary projects.

The downside were a rainy day and some of the very few roads under construction. Our trip up the mountain to visit Hoh Rainforest was curtailed short by a few construction delays and eventually a closed west entry to the forest so we missed out there but can’t complain about the beach side at all. We actually got an extra couple days to the trip thanks to our failed hydraulic pump for our leveling jacks on the RV. This one was a bit more than Vince could tinker with but we were thankful to find Justin Time RV repairs our of Forks and Justin got us back on the road and for a reasonable price too… highly recommend him if you’re ever in the area with some service needs 👍

Sites Visited:

Port Angeles Olympic Visitor Center
Crescent Lake
Forks
La Push Beach 1 & Beach 2 (.8 mile hike)
Rialto Beach
Mora Campground
Quiluete Resort & RV Resort

As you roll into La Push, 3 Rivers Resort has a well visited sign delineating the Vampire - Quilteute treaty line. You never know who’s running around there.

3 River Resort has some tasty burgers and shakes, just ask these three.

The trucks from the movie series are parked in Forks for your photographic fun.

The cafe where Bella and her Dad have meals is in the movies is a real cafe but it isn’t in Forks. This pic is from Portland, where much of the filming was completed. You can even see Multnomah Falls from the Columbia Gorge in the end credits.

In addition to Twilight fandom scattered around town they also were famous for a few other things. As noted above, Forks is noted for having the highest average rainfall in the lower 48. Michele is standing by the rain gauge with the record highs and lows but even the lows are high for most places.

Jayden celebrated a big 16th Birthday in La Push. We’ve been celebrating for weeks with some surging presents all the way back to Oregon but with some added Birthday cash Jayden rented another wetsuit and board and caught some La Push waves. He’s getting better!

La Push 1st Beach has an interesting break with a channel just off short between the break and James Island which is the largest of the coastal barrier islands. The break changes relative to the tide significantly and so do the swells. Pictured is about knee to waist high but it quickly got to chest and head high just a bit south on the beach.

Some of those larger waves south on the beach with Jayden riding one all the way in on this side.

With the Summer Solstice the sunset wasn’t till about 9:40 so this is what La Push considers a night surfing session!

One common part of the Washington coast were trees… lots of absolutely huge trees with root systems on some washed up on the beach. A literal barricade of fallen trees is at the high tide line of each of the beaches.

More of those Washington yellow and purple fields of flowers.

A .8 mile hike through a beautiful mossy forest and you emerge to this view of La Push 2nd Beach. Saying its like a movie or adventure novel is getting old but… it just is too storybook so many times. WOW

Mom and Jayden on a rock lining the beach. Couldn’t find out if this one had a name but you can crawl out dry when its low tide.

Little shadow love in front of a burned out root system on the beach. The beaches are restricted for camping for most of the year but camping for non native Quileute opened last week and we saw many setting up a seaside tent along the driftwood forest. This tree was used as a campfire backstop by someone… might give reason for the restricted use.

Kelp lined the beach and Jayden found a few Starfish.

Fort building in the driftwood trees was hours of fun.

Far north side of 2nd Beach is rocky with a hidden beach cove around this corner. I’m told at low tide you can get around but we weren’t able to explore.

Crazy beautiful sunset that he camera just can’t quite capture but best we can share.

On the trail headed out, the root system of this tree has become a totem of beach rocks.

We caught 2 sunsets on this gorgeous night. The 2nd beach cliffs offered our first and after hiking back out… quickly, we were able to drive the bend to 1st Beach lookout and catch the sunset there too.

1st Beach panorama and you can really see that driftwood forest of trees at the high tide line better on this view.

Another 1st Beach pano… this one closer to the water.

North of the jetty and Quilayute River is Rialto Beach, just past the Olympic National Park Mora Campground. Rialto is a rockhound haven with some naturally polished stone making up the entire beach on the south end. James Island is on the south end (left) which is the end of 1st Beach south of the river. The jetty extend all the way to James Island and creates the river inlet and port for fishing vessels.

This is the jetty that extends out to James Island separating Rialto Beach from the Quillayute River. The jetty is lined with more drift wood trees so this was Robert and Vince’s parcour course for this beach hike.

Hard to tell but most of those trees are 2-3 ft in diameter so it was a workout but Dad and Robert both this great for this roughly 1.2 mile parkour hike.

Up the Quillayute River past the boat yard… really pretty and we saw but could not get pictures of some Sea Otter in the river.

Further up river we saw an Eagle up close when Peyton was fishing. Vince couldn’t get the phone out quick enough for any better a picture than this but it did fly bout 20 feet in front of us with a trout in its talons.

Eagle came back to taught Peyton more, he hadn’t caught his fish.

Peyton’s creative capacity continues to find outlets. He used local downed branches and carved a Harry Potter inspired wand. He fire treated the wood and detailed in the next picture.

Bit of stain and paint and he has a nice wand ready for some spell casting.

Our lapidary project, mixed rock batch #2 after phase 2 rotary tumbler completed. Shaping up pretty good with some really cool colors emerging. Back in the tumbler for phase 3!

Crescent Lake is a glacial lake on the edt side of the mountain ridge… and stunningly beautiful. We only drive around it not could see staying for a bit on a future trip.

Boys getting their Jr Ranger badges 🤓

View of Port Angeles and the Olympic Mountain Range from the US Coast Guard Station Port Angeles

Every RV trip has its mechanical hurdles and we got our latest at La Push. The RV’s hydraulic stabilizing jacks lit up like a Christmas Tree and wouldn’t retract. These are some heavy duty jacks so you can’t just drive with them down, nor do they manually retract very east. Being hydraulic they do have a motor and pump but when you’re in a remote location with barely any cell service it’s not easy to get detailed instructions or a mechanic.

For those not familiar with RV jacks, this is the control panel for the RV’s hydraulic leveling system. At about 35,000 lbs the rig needs a pretty robust leveling system to stabilize the RV, especially with 3 rowdy boys. Well those aren’t Christmas lights, it’s the LCI leveling system error code for low voltage… and the jacks are still down and La Push is pretty but also pretty remote for repairs and we have very sketchy cell service. 🤨

We found a mechanic in Forks who spent hours on the hydraulic system and found a burden out motor. After repairing that, no power and without detailed schematics of the wiring from the makers we were stuck and couldn’t find where the system burned out or blew a fuse. We found 3 fuses but not the right one so we manually bled the hydraulic lines and pushed the jacks up to drive back to civilization.

With some help from the Quiluete we found a mobile mechanic who was able to identify that the DC motor powering the hydraulic pump had failed. A few hundred dollars later and a rebuilt motor because a new one would be days of not weeks away, we are hooking it backup but not getting any power? Hours of digging some surprisingly conflicting info on the internet of how the system is wired into our motorhome and we had to call it and bleed the hydraulics from each jack to push them up manually and drove back to a town with parts and diagnostics. Port Angeles and Salish Trail Campground ended up being our stopping point.

In Port Angeles, which is a decent sized town, we found a good spot to stop at Salish Trail Campground and a super kind retired mechanic to help us find the source of the electrical failure. Here it is, a 150 amp, Bussman, AIM fuse. You wouldn’t believe how many kids of these fuses there are and non in town fit our specific set up so Amazon was good for an overnight delivery and we got the juice back to the hydraulic system.

With no availability in the actual RV shops a local mechanic helped us find the power source disruption, or so we thought, which was a 150amp AIM fuse in this relay box. Thankfully Amazon came through with a 24hr solution and we go everything reconnected and tested “green” but the pump still wouldn’t work 🤨

So after 6-7 hours of effort to solve the power and motor issue and several hundred dollars, $5 baling wire is the solution to keep us on the road to Mt Vernon, WA. We can operate without jacks but it’s like living on a boat rocking as the 5 bodies and dogs move about 🤪 Still thankful for our angel mechanic and for an unexpected pretty stop in Port Angeles. We caught the following amazing sunset and Mountain views to help easy the shin kick of our jack failure.