What we thought would just be another rainy day on the spit turned out to be quite an adventure with wind gusts up to 90 mph on the beach at times. The storm report at Garibaldi, Oregon reported winds as high as 83 mph's where Sea Lion Caves further south registered gusts of up to 93 mphs 
Failing to do enough research on the weather beforehand we headed out hwy 6 and drove down to Tillamook, heading south from the mook to get to Cape Lookout State Park and the TH for the Netarts Spit Hike. The spit is a beautiful(and often lonely) stretch of the coast south of Tillamook Bay that boasts 5 miles of awesome beach walking. According to McArthur, Netarts Bay is probably named after a specific Indian family(Nestucca Indians I think) or local site somewhere on the spit/bay although I couldn't find any solid confirmation on that. Heading north from the parking area and campground took us onto the beach with light winds and constant drizzle dominating the weather pattern early on:
A great description in Matt Reeder's book of the hike and a couple of great TR's from pdxgene and jessbee had us eager to see the spit, which was covered in hundreds of washed up jellies:
And lots of unbroken shells as Matt mentioned in his book, here is a limpit:
Dungeness crab shells after molt, they can molt as many as 6 times per year in the first few years of their life:
There were also lots of dead Mole Crabs on the spit:
Apparently crows and gulls eat the eggs off the under side of the females, damaging the crabs ability to move and essentially leaving it for the sand fleas to eat. I guess maybe the rest of the crab is inedible?
Heading north on the beach and it was clear this would be a great place to return when the sun is shining:
The spit is covered in European Beach Grass and Scotch Broom but there are still lots of nice natives like Shore Pine, Sitka Spruce and Evergreen Huckleberry. The non natives seem to dominate in the more open areas:
Before being sand blasted to death the weather was just right for a nice sand chair on the spit:
We spotted a harbor seal in the surf just off the beach, blurry but you can see the seal on the left poking its head out of the water. It was an awesome sight to see!
Just before we reached the northern end of the spit the storm rolled in and roll in it did. Of course it was coming from the south which meant having to walk back against the mighty force of nature. The winds were so harsh that we had to stop and hold each others ground about every 10 - 20 yards. Jojo was knocked clean off her feet a couple of times and with sticks and debris flying through the air it was clear things were getting really dangerous out there. Sunglasses, hoods and scarves on to battle the wind, we attempted to take refuge in the pine scrub but the impenetrable Salal didn't make that easy. After hunkering down a few times(which we probably should have done longer) we took back to the beach and pushed on through what felt like hell on earth in the form of being sandblasted. The flat 4 miles that had taken us an hour or two in the morning took us almost 5 hours on the return trip. Exhausted and nearly voiceless after our adventure we reached the car and headed to the Safeway in Tillamook to flush the sand out of our eyes and to grab some hot food. All in all, this recliner beach hike turned out to be one of the toughest hikes I've ever been on. Trees falling over, sticks flying and 80 mph gusts made for quite an epic adventure. Tail between my legs and feeling bad after dragging Joie through that I am taking her out to lunch today with some shopping after haha. I think most girls would have dumped their bf/husband after that so i'm feeling pretty lucky right now lol
Moral of the story, don't be a dumb*ss like me and forget to check the weather the day/morning before you go somewhere! Thanks for reading!
Nice report, Sean - albeit with a rough ending! Gorgeous photos, and as I always like to say, if you actually live to see the great photos you've captured, then it's a success..! 
