The story
Offshore sea stacks are a defining feature of the Olympic coast. These isolated rock pillars are erosion-resistant remnants of a former shoreline; over time the surrounding softer rock wore away, leaving the harder formations standing alone in the surf, marking where the mainland once reached farther out to sea.
Slow down for this stretch. The ocean is close now, and on a clear break in the trees you may catch sea stacks offshore, those dark towers of rock standing alone in the surf. They're the leftovers of an old coastline, harder rock that refused to erode while the softer land around it washed away. Every one of them was once part of the mainland. The sea simply took everything but the bones.
Photo: Ron Clausen · CC BY-SA 4.0
