Cape Alava Loop (Ozette Triangle) — Saturday, Apr. 16, 2016

Olympic Peninsula > Pacific Coast

Each and every hike I go on is like a beautiful and unique, pretty little snowflake. But this hike was a very special little snowflake. I reckon the way I feel about the Ozette Triangle is similar to a how a mother with dozens of children feels about her secretly favorite child: In love and slightly conflicted. Let’s take this step-by-step how we got here. Mr. BlueSky and I caught a ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and drove to Port Angeles the night before the hike to save some time in the morning so that we could be a bit leisurely about the day. After a lively breakfast of instant eggs and sausage gravy for me, and a PB&J for Mr. B, we set off to visit the nearby grave of Raymond Carver. I naively did not know who he was, but Herb explained that he was a brilliant writer and poet who touched many lives. May he rest in peace. We stopped at the visitor center in Port Angeles on our way out of town and got a permit to stay overnight at Cape Alava. Come May 1st you will need a permit and reservation, which you can do online. It takes about 2 hours to get from Port Angeles to the Ozette Lake Campground, which is also where the trailhead is located. We decided to hike the entire loop, and hike 6 miles on Saturday and the remaining 3 on Sunday. So if you checked out the elevation gain on WTA, you know it is only 100 ft, right? Should be pretty much a cake walk of a hike right? Maybe you think, "hey, let’s bring a lot of luxury items like Ukuleles and meat and cheese and bottles of whiskey, because it’s going to be so easy," right? WRONG. Only 60% correct. What they don’t tell you is that those middle 3 miles along the beach are mostly soft sand or huge boulders/fallen trees to climb over. If you’ve never walked an extended distance in soft sand with a 30-35lb pack on your back and had to climb over rocks before, you’re not missing out. It is not awesome. . As a Star Wars fan, I finally realized why Anakin Skywalker hates sand so much. However, if you hate this trip report so far, hang in there. It’s all worth it! If I could do this hike over again, I would just backpack to either Sand Point or Cape Alava, set up camp there and then explore the beach areas backpack-free. Serious, this walk on the beach is no picnic. Nor is it romantic even at the sunset. You think you are making progress but you are about 80% just sinking in to the sand. And the two 3-mile sections from the trailhead to the beach are so similar, you’re not missing anything if you only do one section. That being said, the beach is beautiful as F! Our campsite was… surreal. I said it looked CGI, like a scene from MYST circa late 1990’s, Mr. BlueSky thought it felt like a dream. We are both correct. There are the most magical looking little islands popping up all along the coast. It’s like nothing I personally have seen in person. I would often gaze off in to the ocean and completely forget the rest of the world existed. One detail I should not omit: Perhaps it was a coincidence, or the magic of this place, but we’ve never encountered a huge quantity of such nice, awesome fellow backpackers. Seriously, almost every single person that passed by our campsite stopped by to say hi and get to know us. We met 2 guys camping next to us who were doing some surfing near the little islands (WHAT) and 3 ladies who also packed in 3 ukuleles and wanted to have a jam session, and many, many others. I’m getting a bit lengthy, so I’m going to conclude soon. After setting up camp, we laid in our hammocks, lit a fire, watched the tide come in, played on our Ukuleles and sang songs. Really there is no better sound to my ears than soft Ukulele and waves crashing. The hike back to the car was as easy as we had hoped and was a lovely way to conclude the adventure. The “Too Long; Didn’t Read” of this post is, don’t carry your heavy backpacks through the beach part. This hike is so amazing, surreal and gorgeous, but it has some rough edges. And that it is why it is my current favorite snowflake. Mr. BlueSky often starts his trip reports with a quote… In response I finish this with a quote from a favorite song by Mason Jennings, “…Like I miss the ocean when I go to asleep… Man, it’s gonna break my heart”