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Ruby Beach

Photo: Ron Clausen / CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

🏖️ Beaches

Ruby Beach

Olympic National Park, WA · Olympic Coast

About

Ruby Beach is the postcard of the wild Washington coast, where Highway 101 drops you onto dark sand stained faintly red by garnet crystals and scattered with bleached driftwood logs the size of telephone poles. Sea stacks rise straight out of the surf, with tree-crowned Abbey Island anchoring the view and tide pools full of starfish and anemones appearing when the water pulls back. Come an hour before sundown, climb over the driftwood, and watch the Pacific light up behind the stacks for one of the best sunsets in the country.

Highlights

Tree-crowned Abbey Island and offshore sea stacksGarnet-tinted sand and giant driftwood logsTide pools with starfish and anemones at low tideOne of the Pacific Northwest's best sunset spotsRight off Highway 101 in Olympic National Park

Getting there

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Best Beaches in the US26 places

Best Beaches in the US

From Pacific cliffs and Hawaiian bays to Outer Banks dunes, Great Lakes sand, and Gulf sugar, these are the beaches across the country worth the drive, the flight, or the ferry. Some you walk a mile to reach, some you take a boat or a ferry, and a few you just pull off the highway and gasp. The best beaches in America, coast to coast to coast.