MBFE - Day 12 - A Walk in the Park well between parks

Here it is, day 12 of the 2017 BYU-Idaho marine biology field experience, and our second Saturday.  The day was sunny (woot!) but windy.  

There were no scheduled class meetings or classes today so students used the morning to rest, recuperate and work on research.  In the afternoon some of us used the beautiful day to go on a 4 mile hike along the cliffs above the ocean between Sunset Bay State Park and Shore Acres State Park - former summer home of timber magnate LJ Simpson.  

It was a fantastic day!

Here are some of the vistas the day treated us to.

 

Between Sunset Bay and Shore Acres

 

Cape Arago lighthouse.

 

Between Sunset Bay and Shore Acres

 

Between Sunset Bay and Shore Acres

 

Simpson's Beach, Shore Acres State Park

(L-R) Courtney, Darby and Rob, Katie, Bri, Harrison and Ashley

At the end of our hike we went down to Simpson Beach at Shore Acre State Park.  It's a pretty little pocket beach with a nice sandy beach overlooking the a rocky shelf and the outlet to the ocean.  It was here that I realized that the trip is really working!  Rather than lounge up on the beach, the group was drawn to the rocks and tide pools where they started scouring the place to see which algae and invertebrate animals were there.  Life is good! 

We came across an impressive overlook along the trail, just before we arrived at Shore Acres State Park, where waves were crashing full-force into the rocky shore.  We were well back from the edge, but we stayed and watched for a while.  Here are a few highlights of that break.

 

If you look closely you'll see two people sitting atop some rocks to the left of this image (Darby and Courtney).  Though it looks like they are dangerously close to the waves, they are well back and there is a deep channel between them and the waves.  They are in no danger.  In fact, they didn't even get wet.

I made a short animated gif that shows this particular wave breaking.

 

The hike took about 3 hours, and we were all glad we went.  

Then to cap off the weekend most of the crew (including me) went to the theater and watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2.  Good times were had by all.

Stay tuned for more adventures and updates from the BYU-Idaho MBFE.