long stair stepper with a board walk and massive payoff at the end

Bring Bear Spray, whistle and consider bear bells

Multiple bears fishing, crabbing and stripping berries

Petroglyphs by wedding rocks close to the tree line

The trails over the bulkheads are super steep for backpacking, it was worth the wait for tide to go down. We waited 20 min that day and walked around easily.

Cape Alava creek is flowing well especially up stream a bit.

Multiple large campsites north of Cape Alava along the tree line with ocean views.

Sadly the sick fur seal has died and is on the beach.

Tannin in the fresh water makes it tea colored.

We missed our campfires at Cape Alava with the burn ban.

There are some composite material "boards" on the Ozette  Cape Alava trail.  They are very slippery when wet so be careful on them.

Please don't feed the bears, this one was like a huge curious dog looking for a handout.  We yelled blew our whistles and waved our poles and it sauntered off to the forest.

Don't forget to print your backpacking permit before you leave home.  There is not reliable cell phone service.

The road to Lake Ozette is nicely paved and the parking lot at the ranger station is large.

An easy backpack trip for the young and the old!

My daughter agreed on a two-nighter to Cape Alava because: a. it’s beautiful, and b. the entry trail is easy. Parts of the boardwalk are looking tired and some of the old, untreated wood slats are being replaced with coated, artificial boards. This makes sense as they will last longer and ultimately be safer.

It’s nice to arrive at Cape Alava to the sealions barking on Bodelteh islands, the eagle on Eagle Rock and the mist that always seems to be swirling around. The campsites are flat, spacious and furnished with logs, driftwood and flotsam that work as seats, tables and decoration. They are also well-spaced so you never feel crowded, and (if you arrive early) there is a variety of sites to choose from. Those with the best views are further from the water source. The creek is running low but it’s still flowing, and the water is good. I still boiled it before using it.

At this stage of the year, there is a lot going on with the wildlife. Flocks of sandpipers and oystercatchers are continually flying past. Tiny chipmunks dart through the coastal logs. Sea Otters and California Sealions socialize some way off the shore. Black-tailed deer make their unobtrusive way along the sand. On Thursday, there was a bear at Sand Point and another at Cape Alava. The latter made its way up the coast to Wedding Rocks, where it headed inland. It’s good that the bears, chipmunks and crows are not looking to humans for food.

This time I saw no River Otters, Harbor Seals or Sooty Grouse. Numbers of starfish and crabs (including hermit crabs) were way down from previous years. On the other hand, the bumblebee population was booming. We saw a juvenile Salmon Shark stranded by that morning’s retreating tide. It looked like a miniature Great White Shark and is a much more solid creature than the usual sharks I see around this coast.

The stars of the show were the Garter Snakes. There was a mating bundle of them at Wedding Rocks, close to the Orca and Humpback petroglyphs. They had just shed their skins and were showing off their lovely patterns in a sunny tangle of lust.

We left a little earlier than we planned because of heavy rain on Friday but it seems to be clearing up for the weekend.

A couple of concerns:

• I have never noticed vandalism in this area before, but we met a Ranger who had to spend his day taking a grinder along the trails to get rid of graffiti. Someone had used a Sharpie to draw over one of the most prominent petroglyphs. I’m surprised that anyone who would make the effort to come to such a beautiful place would deliberately deface it.
• There’s a well-designed pump-flush toilet at the Cape Alava camp. Some people are still using the logs on the shoreline and leaving clumps of soiled toilet paper next to camp sites. I realize that the toilet has a certain smell but if you use it, the smell stays there and not where people are trying to relax. You need to bring your own paper.

Beautiful and rugged.

It is crucial that you time the tides to get around a few points, however there are "alternative routes" (with ropes) up and over the headwalls that could prove difficult with packs. We barely made it around the second head with about a minute to spare....we had become distracted and mesmerized watching a bear feast on the "salad bar" of kelp on the beach!

No water sources that I could see on this trip; everything is pretty dried up.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Many large, recently-downed, trees completely cross the small beach just south of Cape Alava and they jut all the way out to the kelp-covered rocks, so choose your path carefully. Some have paths in the sand near the roots, but others don't...forcing you to either wind your way through the limbs or go all the way around them on the rocks. Even the jagged rocks can be extremely slippery with seaweed on them. Sharp and slippery makes for a nasty combination. And during this week's high tides, the seaweed can be over a foot thick on the shoreline. I'm guessing these trees could be an issue at high tides, too, but I was there at low tide, so no problems.

Fortunately, the downed trees only last for less than 1/2 mile.

Does anyone know what kind of snake this is (last picture)? We found a brood of about 5 of them (all over a foot long), but they don't look like garder snakes. These guys were entirely brown with minimal stripes.

Yes, there are mosquitoes and swarms of kelp flies...fortunately, they don't bite.

parking lot half full when we arrived around 1 pm Friday. Boardwalk in decent shape. Hike to cape alava quite easy. Busy, but ample space to camp. Saw many whales, sea lions, seals, eagles, kingfisher, plover, yellowlegs, and yellow warblers.