Getting to the trailhead is its own small errand — Shi Shi is technically inside Olympic National Park, but the access and parking are on the Makah reservation, so you stop in Neah Bay first for a separate recreation permit before you ever start walking. The name itself is Makah, roughly "surf" or "smelt beach," pronounced "shy-shy". The trail in is easy compared to what you've heard about it — a couple flat miles through Sitka spruce and shelf fungus the size of dinner plates, with long stretches of boardwalk laid down over what would otherwise be an unavoidable mud pit. It ends abruptly at a bluff, and then you're dropping down onto the sand.

We camped right on the beach, driftwood logs stacked up around the fire pit, with Point of the Arches visible from where we sat. It's a string of sea stacks and natural arches a couple miles down the beach, a National Natural Landmark since 1971, and worth timing around low tide — the tide pools in among the rocks were full of ochre sea stars and green anemones packed shoulder to shoulder, plus mussel beds thick enough to walk on. My father, stick in hand, spent as much time picking through the pools as he did walking. It's one of the better father-son beaches on the whole coast, mud pit and permit stop included.