La Push's best tidepool run of 2026 is July 12–17, computed from NOAA station 9442396 — every day Exceptional, deepening to −3.00 ft MLLW on Tuesday, July 14 at 7:15 AM, the year's lowest daylight tide here. One catch: Rialto Beach and Hole-in-the-Wall, the classic spot, are closed until October 15 while Mora Road is rebuilt. Go to Second Beach instead — a 0.7-mile trail off La Push Road reaches the same tides and some of the most accessible pools on the coast.
The Olympic coast saves its deepest daylight water for a few mornings around the mid-July new moon, and 2026 is no exception. But this year there is a routing problem to solve before you set an alarm, so start there.
First, the Rialto Beach closure
If you searched "Hole-in-the-Wall Rialto Beach low tide," read this before you drive. Olympic National Park has closed the road to Rialto Beach for the summer. Per the park's current conditions page: "From July 8–Oct. 15, construction crews will need to close both lanes of Mora Road to pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle traffic beyond the Mora Campground. Rialto Beach will not be accessible via Mora Road during this construction period."
That is not a partial closure you can walk around — it is closed to foot and bike traffic too, and it runs through the entire July minus-tide run and well past it. Hole-in-the-Wall, the sea-carved arch about 1.5 miles up the beach from the Rialto parking lot, is on the far side of the closure. For this summer, cross it off the list.
The good news: the best tidepools near La Push are not actually at Rialto. They are at Second Beach, reached from a different road (La Push Road, not Mora Road) that is open and unaffected. Same tide station, same water, a shorter walk — and arguably better pools. The rest of this guide is about working those tides at Second Beach.
When is the lowest tide at La Push in 2026?
Tidewindow computes windows for the La Push beaches from the nearest NOAA prediction station, La Push, Quillayute River (9442396). Here are the eight deepest daylight lows of the year, ranked by depth, with the score that folds tide depth and daylight together.
| Rank | Date | Low (ft MLLW) | Time of low | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tue, Jul 14 | −3.00 | 7:15 AM | 90 |
| 2 | Wed, Jul 15 | −2.98 | 8:01 AM | 90 |
| 3 | Mon, Jul 13 | −2.70 | 6:26 AM | 90 |
| 4 | Thu, Jul 16 | −2.63 | 8:44 AM | 90 |
| 5 | Wed, Aug 12 | −2.31 | 6:58 AM | 90 |
| 6 | Tue, Aug 11 | −2.18 | 6:13 AM | 86 |
| 7 | Thu, Aug 13 | −2.14 | 7:39 AM | 90 |
| 8 | Sun, Jul 12 | −2.14 | 5:35 AM | 97 |
Computed 2026-07-08 from NOAA station 9442396 predictions, MLLW.
Every one of the year's eight deepest daylight lows lands in July or August, and five of them fall inside a single week. The outer coast is like that — the deep water comes in short mid-summer runs and hands you very little the rest of the year.
Notice the scores. Tuesday the 14th is the deepest at −3.00 ft but scores 90, while Sunday the 12th, a foot shallower, scores 97. Depth is only half the story; the window scale also weighs how much of the low falls in usable daylight and how workable the hour is. The methodology page shows exactly how the two combine. The short version for planning: the 14th gives you the most exposed rock, and the 12th gives you the friendliest morning.
The July 12–17 Exceptional run
Deep lows arrive in runs of five or six consecutive mornings around a new or full moon, each day's low landing roughly 45 minutes later than the last. In July 2026 that run reaches Exceptional (90+) every day from Sunday the 12th through Friday the 17th.
| Date | Low (ft) | Time of low | Tide window | Arrive by | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun, Jul 12 | −2.14 | 5:35 AM | 3:00–8:15 AM | 4:35 AM | 97 |
| Mon, Jul 13 | −2.70 | 6:26 AM | 3:45–9:15 AM | 5:26 AM | 90 |
| Tue, Jul 14 | −3.00 | 7:15 AM | 4:35–10:00 AM | 6:15 AM | 90 |
| Wed, Jul 15 | −2.98 | 8:01 AM | 5:25–10:40 AM | 7:01 AM | 90 |
| Thu, Jul 16 | −2.63 | 8:44 AM | 6:15–11:15 AM | 7:44 AM | 90 |
| Fri, Jul 17 | −2.00 | 9:26 AM | 7:05–11:45 AM | 8:26 AM | 95 |
Computed 2026-07-08 from NOAA station 9442396 predictions. Scores (0–100) weigh tide depth and daylight together.
Watch the low time march down the column: 5:35 AM on Sunday, past 9:00 AM by Friday. Early in the run you trade a pre-dawn start for the deepest water; later, the low drifts into comfortable mid-morning. If your calendar only bends on weekends, Sunday, July 12 is the pick — its low at 5:35 AM catches first light and it scores the run's highest 97. Saturday the 11th does not make the table: its low falls at 4:39 AM, before sunrise, so it rates only Good (74) despite a respectable −1.37 ft. The sun is the constraint here, not the water. This same new-moon run pulls the tide back all along the coast; the West Coast minus-tide roundup lines La Push up against Puget Sound, the Oregon coast, and California the same week, and the nearest inland-water sibling guide, Port Townsend, runs its own Exceptional stretch on these dates.
Where to go: Second Beach (and Third Beach)
With Rialto closed, Second Beach is the destination. The trailhead sits on La Push Road, about 14 miles west of US 101 on the Quileute Indian Reservation, and the trail runs 0.7 miles each way, descending roughly 200 feet through old-growth forest before it opens onto a wide sand beach hemmed with sea stacks and a natural arch. The tidepools here are among the most accessible on the Olympic coast — on a deep low you can walk well out toward the stacks and work the exposed rock. Note that Olympic National Park does not allow pets on the trail or the beach.
If Second Beach is busy — and on a summer weekend low it will be — Third Beach is the quieter fallback: same La Push Road, about 12 miles west of US 101, a longer 1.4-mile trail dropping about 270 feet to another sea-stack beach. It draws fewer people and its pools are less picked-over, at the cost of a little more walking.
One honest caveat about the tide station: 9442396 sits at the Quillayute River mouth by La Push, so its predictions are the best available reference for these beaches, but the exact minute of low water on the sand a mile down the coast can differ slightly. Give yourself margin — which the arrive-by column already builds in.
What you'll find in the pools
The last two months of community observations logged within a few kilometers of the station read like a catalog of the exposed outer coast. The most-reported animal is the Horned Nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis), a small, luminously striped sea slug, followed by two dogwinkles — the Frilled Dogwinkle (Nucella lamellosa) and Striped Dogwinkle (Nucella ostrina) — the Black Tegula snail (Tegula funebralis), and the Rough Keyhole Limpet (Diodora aspera). Chitons do well on this wave-battered rock: observers have logged Hind's Chiton (Mopalia hindsii), Mossy Chiton (Mopalia muscosa), and the Black Leather Chiton (Katharina tunicata), that glossy black slab wedged in the surf zone. Rounding out the list are the Monterey Dorid (Doris montereyensis) and beds of California Mussel (Mytilus californianus), the mussel that anchors the whole intertidal community.
Species reflect recent iNaturalist observations near the station (CC BY-NC, © the individual observers); NOAA is the tide-prediction data source. What you actually see depends on the day.
How to work the window
Use the arrive-by time in the table, not the low time — get onto the beach about an hour before the low so you can follow the water out to the lowest rocks. Olympic National Park's coastal guidance is blunt about the stakes: "Always carry a tide chart, available at visitor centers and coastal ranger stations, to time your hikes accordingly," because "several points along the coast are only passable at lower tides." On these beaches the hazard is less the depth of the water than getting caught by its return around a headland or against the cliffs.
Footing is the other real risk. The park advises that "algae and seaweed make the surface rocks extremely slippery. Use caution and test rocks before committing to stepping on new surfaces," and, plainly, "do not leap from rock to rock. Always keep at least one foot on the ground." Watch the incoming tide and, on this open coast, "watch closely for the returning tide and 'sneaker waves.'" Turn any rock you lift back the way it was lying — the underside is someone's roof.
After July: the rest of 2026
August holds one more solid run — the mornings of August 11–13 all pull below −2.1 ft, peaking Wednesday the 12th at −2.31 ft — and then the tidepool season closes fast. La Push records 6 daylight minus tides in September, 3 in October, and by late fall every low deep enough to matter has slid back to dusk: the best November and December windows land after 6:00 PM with only a sliver of light. Summer is the season here, and mid-July is its center.
For the day-by-day picture, the year heatmap shows just how alone this week stands on the 2026 La Push calendar, and the trip picker finds multi-day runs like this one without being asked. Chasing the light as much as the water? The golden-hour calendar flags the mornings when the low and the low sun line up. And if you are wondering why every good summer low here comes at dawn, the dawn-lows guide unpacks it. Six mornings, one moon — just point the car down La Push Road, not Mora Road, this year.