It is a rare treat to visit the Pacific Ocean beaches. It is a longer than usual drive, but the scenery is wonderful.

Lake Crescent is one of the world's most beautiful lakes, the Sol Duc River is one of my favorite rivers and the beaches here are world class; each has its own special wonders.

Rialto Beach always will be my favorite because of its accessibility and its majesty and power. Beach No. 2 is a place to walk forever at low tide and a place with many secrets.

Beach No. 3 is a further walk and intimate. You and God can walk here hand-in-hand and watch the shattered continent and the massive ocean battle for supremacy ... knowing that neither has a chance of winning this battle.

Beach No. 3 is probably the smallest of these beaches, which all are very close to La Push. You walk longer before you smell the ocean or hear its breath; you walk through a damp forest and large trees, and see the evidence of old-growth timber long ago harvested. In spring you notice the blooms on skunk cabbage along the trail and wild currant and the shamrock-looking leaves of oxalis on the damp forest floor. It takes you awhile to reach the beach.

It always is interesting to revisit these beaches in the spring. The winter storms rearrange the topography at their whims.

I have been to this beach when I had to crawl over tons of driftwood logs to see the ocean; today, I simply follow-ed a clear path across a small stream and was standing on the beach.

Still, on my trip down to the beach, the same clump of skunk cabbage blooms was exactly where it was years ago. It is this revisiting of familiar places that makes my weekly hikes so valuable. Places sometimes change dramatically between my visits, yet some things stay the same.

Beach No. 3 always stands there squeezed between two headlands that are difficult to get around, basically impossible. To the south, a jumble of rocks rises from the ocean, the place where North America disappears into the Pacific Ocean. The meeting is angry as waves try to wear away and destroy this stubborn rock.

The rock itself is magical. There is a tough sandstone-type rock that on closer look is etched and carved by windblown sand. Then, too, there is an almost black conglomerate born in a violent clash of molten rock engulfing existing pebbles.

Here these two rock types share a strip of beach. It is hard to imagine how both find themselves in this place. It is one of the reasons that I find this part of the world so magical.

At Rialto Beach (or maybe, past Rialto Beach) there is a place where the windblown sand carves the rock so the rock almost looks like it has spider webs imbedded into it. It's another place where huge boulders of conglomerate can be found. And, there is a place where the rock strata is turned on end and looks like narrow ribbons of rock that form a roadway leading from the shore into the Pacific Ocean.

In this corner of the world, it isn't just emotions that capture my attention. Nature itself reaches out and expands the limits of what is possible.

Way out on Shi Shi Beach, I discovered a place where the machine that rotates the Earth must be moored offshore like some giant aircraft carrier. The noise it generates is loud and constant. I have sat on the beach and listened for hours. Nowhere else have I heard this roar offshore. La Push has its wild side too, but it is quieter.

I swear that one day the waves at Rialto Beach wanted to consume me. They harassed me and chased my wife and me off the beach. They towered over us and pushed aside giant driftwood logs to force us back to our car.

I love these beaches and the secrets they hide.

Richard Olmer can be reached at columnists@

sequimgazette.com.