We arrived from the south, through the little (though not so little as where we were coming from) town of Hawk's Prairie. Over the bridge and past the interstate entrances on Marvin Road, we follow it straight through three "round-a-bouts". The road ends at a "t" on 56th, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Follow it to the right and around the corner, and there on the left is another non-descript road: the entrance to Tolmie State Park.
Whether you park in the top parking lot (to the right upon entrance) or the bottom, you'll encounter a winding trail under tall trees to take you straight to your destination.
Birds sing and trill and the branches of those tall trees bow together and envelope you from overhead.
The trail opens up from the top parking lot onto the rocky upper portion of the beach. The beach here is usually very uncrowded.
The trail from the bottom parking lot leads past picnic tables, the bathrooms, and a large meeting room type picnic area. Down another winding trail you reach a bridge out over a stream headed to the ocean. This part of Puget Sound is called Henderson inlet.
The bridge leads you down to the same beach the trail would lead to from the upper parking lot. This is a good place to stop for photos or just to take in the view. You can see boats out here fairly often, even large yachts and beautiful sail boats.
Along the beach you'll find all sorts of fun crawly things to poke and bother. Lift or disturb any rock and you'll see bunches of tiny crabs scatter.
We spent a good few minutes poking them about for the entertainment of my little sister, April. You'll see her in the pictures.
My favorite thing about Tomie is how small things are there. From typical shells to sand dollars, often you can find many smaller than the tip of one's pinky. They are spectacular fun to search for. I prefer to take photos and leave them there. They're far too small to be easily transported, and overall when exploring nature it's nice to leave things as you've found them.
Enjoy the photos for a better overall visual of this awesome little park and inlet and expect another daytripper report soon. Next should be Alder, WA unless I get pulled off into an impulse trip before then! ;)
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