Last weekend Julie and I were able to go on a 4 day/3 night backpacking trip to Cape Alava, out on the Olympic Coast. The trip was GREAT...it's a beautiful place to visit. We were able to camp about 10 feet from the edge of the beach; right where the "rain forest" meets the "ocean." I've broken my posts down into the 4 days; mainly because I have a lot of pictures to upload.
Day 1 started with a 7:15AM departure from our home in Bellingham followed by a 7 hour drive out to the trailhead. The trail starts at the Ozette Loop Trailhead next to the Ozette campground which is, you guessed it, next to Lake Ozette which also happens to feed the Ozette river. Ok, that was a little lame. However, the hike was anything but lame... Click here for a good map;
It's about a 3.5 mile hike, fairly flat (which was good considering my 45 lb pack). The hike out to the coast is mainly through wooded areas, as well as one part through a small prairie. It was a beautiful sunny day on the hike in, but about 1/8th of a mile from the coast we hit the fog bank. That first day the fog never lifted and we had a damp evening with no sun/starts. Still, the coast and beach were beautiful. We chose to hike about 1/2 mile north around the point to find a more secluded campsite where we could also enjoy the sound of the waves. Surprisingly, on the south side of the point, (Cape Alava and Tskawahyah island, which actually is only an island at high tide), there were no waves at all...and thus, no sound of the waves. Once you get around that point, though, instant waves! I loved falling asleep to the sound of the ocean.
We made camp by about 5:30, had a nice dinner of freeze dried ____ by 6:30, and had a campfire going by about 7:30/8:00. If you're counting, that's about 10 hours from Bellingham to having a tent pitched...not bad! We'll wrap up day 1 with that;
I should note: we were camping in the Makah Indian Reservation...quite a bit of history here, but also a little sad to see some of it dying out.
A few pictures below, click here to see all the day 1 pictures.
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