Took a friend on her first backpacking trip, this is one of my favorites. We spent Sunday evening camping at Ozette Campground at the trailhead and started our hike the next morning. Surprising number of cars on a Monday morning but didn't run into many people. There are tons of ripe evergreen huckleberry, red huckleberry, and salal.
The board walk is in rough shape as mentioned. Some areas where only one side is attached for several feet, or there are boards missing.
We camped at Sand Point the first night. We saw smoke from someone with a campfire in the sites in the trees on the point but it seemed to be out within minutes of us seeing the smoke. The camps on the south end of the Sand Point camp area were well-protected from the wind. As far as we could tell, there were only a couple other groups camping at Sand Point. Fresh water was very dark colored and barely flowing. The privy on the south side is an enclosed pit toilet, and the one on the northern side is a "flushing" compost toilet with a pedal.
With the morning low-tide timing, we headed north early on Tuesday. The first section is deep sand that isn't super fun to walk in, and after Wedding Rocks, it's a lot of over-and-unders with large fallen trees, especially if tide is higher. We found some of the petroglyphs and had a break before continuing north. While engrossed searching for sea glass, we were alerted by a whistle and looked up to see a bear ambling towards us a ways up the beach. We walked out into the tidelands, thanked the other hikers for alerting us, then waited while the bear made its way past us. It was unbothered and digging in the sand for snacks. This was less than a quarter mile north of Wedding Rocks.
Cape Alava had better fresh water than Sand Point but it was still running low. We'd had clear weather but knew rain was incoming, so we chose a site with good tarp hanging options. Throughout the day, we saw many people hiking by but only one other group camped overnight. Walking the beach, we found the whale carcass, smelled horrible downwind. Rain started in the late evening. We had a nice tarp-protected hangout area, but discovered tent leaks later on that required moving tents under the tarp. Glad we were prepared for rain! The privy at Cape Alava is also a composting "flush" toilet.
It rained most of the hike out the next day, which was slow due to the vast quantity of ripe berries dangling over the trail. Saw lots of mushrooms popping up too!
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