Armed with a bear canister, tide tables, permit, and the 10 essentials, we set out from Seattle Friday morning to reach the coast via public transit: Ferry to Bainbridge ($10.25 outbound, free on the return), Clallam Transit's Route 123 (The Strait Shot) to Port Angeles ($10 each way), the #14 to Forks (free, with views of Lake Crescent from the right side of the bus), and then the #15 (also free) to La Push and a couple stops in on the return journey to be dropped off at the Third Beach Trailhead.
I had worried that the beach might be too busy, with recreation.gov showing about twenty people on each of our nights, but the Third Beach portions of the trip ended up only having a handful of other campers. We hiked south and set up camp near the ladder overland since we had an early start the next morning. The sky was beautifully clear, providing hundreds of stars and a view of the milky way.
On Saturday morning we were up at dawn for climbing--about four ladders up Taylor Point before relatively level ground (worried that another ladder was around every corner I kept my poles stowed much longer than I needed to) and a descent, before another climb up (this time by rope rather than ladder) at Scott's Bluff and a welcome descent by stairs. There is now a privy at the descent here by Scott Creek. The tide was right at the 4' mark, so we hurried on to Strawberry Point where we rested for lunch. After that we had an easy trek to Toleak Point where we made camp under the trees in a well-established site with a table and stools made from flotsam. We had rain that night, but it was well after we had dined and set everything up.
On Sunday morning we were the first people up. As we headed back north our tracks were the first human ones until Scott Creek (though we saw lots of otter tracks). Sections of the beach between Scott Creek and Strawberry Point where we had been scrambling within a few feet of the cliff yesterday had dozens of feet now that the tide had gone out. The rain last night had widened the creek from the day before and we got rather wet fording, so after the bluff we stopped for breakfast and to dry out. The ropes at Scott's Bluff were quite muddy, which made the return rather more harrowing than the trip up had been! By early afternoon we were back on Third Beach, but now the tide had come in and we were stuck on the south end until late afternoon.
We had another gloriously star-filled evening before waking early the next morning to catch the #15 at the trailhead to begin the trip back to Seattle.
All in all, a moderately challenging, but not overly long (in terms of hours hiking) weekend with some of the best night skies I've had in years.
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