About 6.5 miles with 21-year-old niece from Florida. Forest was cool and beautiful overlooking Puget Sound. Obstacles on the trail included roots and slick sandy sections on the downhill.. The clockwise loop brought us back through a sunny clear, cut region and past a World War II bunker. The last section of switchbacks was on the moderately steep side. Just keep going and you will get there like we did, A 3.5 hour hike in five hours. Be sure to bring plenty of water. 

After a morning tide pooling at tongue point marine sanctuary, I changed parking lots & headed on this trail (there were likely 5 other cars at the trailhead - Sunday around noon with a rainy/stormy forecast. I wanted to check out eagle cove around low tide so I headed clockwise around the loop - strait trail section first & return via bunker trail section. There were small flowers trailside right from the start & this continued intermittently along the entire trail. I encountered about 6 others down at eagle cove and maybe 4 others on the entire trail…so it felt like a solo wander in woods for much of the way. The periodic water views & vistas were delightful. The was intermittent sections of mud (but easy to navigate, step along the edges). The forest cover provided significant wind protection (you could hear the trees creak & moan tho). This trail was a delight (the vistas at the peak were awesome - even in a storm, you could see the incoming rain & the rainbows). In the right weather those well placed benches would be perfect places for contemplating & snacking/picnicking. I’ll return to this trail for sure.

Every time we are on the peninsula, we plan to hit Salt Creek. It’s debatable I know, but I think these are the best tide pools in the state. Let me tell you why.

1. The tide pools are easy to access from multiple entrances. We entered through outlook #4. Took the stairs down to Tongue Point and had about 30 minutes before tide started to come in. It was slow coming in today and we stayed down at the point and beach for 3 hours. 

2. Sea creatures galore. Today we saw hundreds of sea urchins, anemones, hermit crabs and mussels. We also saw a few blood stars, leopard nudibranchs, and red dorit (nudibranch.) We heard someone had see an octopus and lemon nudibranchs. 

3. Beach features. The rocks can be slick, so wear proper footwear but my kids and myself love being able to climb rocks to find a tidepool. You can climb down the rocks and go onto the sandy beach. There is a little island that has tide pools around it and when the tide is out, you can walk around it. 

We explored the tide pools, played in the sand, splashed in the water and discovered creatures we hadn’t see before. Once we were done at the tide pools, we headed over to the playground. It’s a nice playground and great spot for lunch.

We then set off and hiked up Striped Peak with 6 kids ranging from 2 1/2-8. Towards the top is a nice bench and table with stools which is a great snack spot. Bleeding hearts and trillium are in bloom on the trail and a few other types of flowers should be coming soon. The trail switch backs up and wasn’t terrible with steepness, just long. We’ve taken other trails before but decided to go to the top today. 

I recommend checking the tides before you go. Today was a -1 ft tide. And we have been with higher tides but it’s not as great. Also, a change of clothes and shoes are a plus. 

Found a cell phone on a bench at the top of Striped Peak at Salt Creek. Full battery and no ICE info I could access. Hiked it down and left it with the caretaker.
Beautiful day! Hopefully the owner of the phone gets it back easily.

Decided to do a nice easy hike New Year’s Day… ended up doing the full loop. The little cove was beautiful as always, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they’d finished the summit loop since I was up there last year. It’s got some nice benches with a view so it’s definitely worth the trip… the trail is great condition, even the relatively newer portions weren’t all that muddy. There was a dead hawk next to the trail, which combined with the dead cougar from the last report makes me think done a-hole might be shooting at shit but, who knows…. Didn’t see anything sketchy while I was up there…. All and all a good, easy hike