Olympic Coast backpack

Talk about a bucket-list trip. Backpacking the Ozette triangle, a scenic route on the northern Olympic coast, had been on our list for years. It’s best done as a two-night adventure, though, and we’d never managed to make it work with our schedules. 

In mid-August, I was dorking around online, looking at wilderness campsite availability over Labor Day weekend with little hope of finding anything. Wait a second. Was I actually reading the page correctly? Olympic National Park showed spots at Sand Point, the southernmost point of the triangle. I immediately submitted a reservation request. A day later, bam! Reserved! Mr. Adventure and I were seriously stoked.

We planned to camp Saturday night at Lake Ozette, an extremely popular campground on the shores of the eponymous lake and the start of the trail to the coast. It’s first-come, first-served, so we weren’t hopeful about snagging a spot, but figured we’d camp at the nearby private campground if necessary.

Saturday afternoon, standing in line at the Wilderness Information Center at Lake Quinault — hikers must stop there for their permits and bear canisters (free on loan) — I overheard the ranger telling the group in front of us that Sand Point had spots available that night. When we got to the front of the line, he confirmed that and changed our reservation. Now we had two nights at Sand Point. All we had to do was hike out there and set up camp, then spend our time exploring.

Through the forest to Sand Point

The trail is mostly flat, and much of it is boardwalk. That can be tough on your legs and back, but each section of the triangle is only about 3 miles long, so it goes fast. We hiked through gorgeous Sitka spruce forest and reached Sand Point in an hour. 

The roomy campsites at Sand Point stretch along the coast. After previewing empty sites, we settled on one where previous occupants had set up a nice kitchen area. Tent up, sleeping pads inflated, we headed to the beach, just a few steps away.

The beauty here is hard to overstate and hard to capture on camera. We scrambled to the top of Sand Point, a small headland jutting out from the beach, and sat gazing at the ocean and the forest. A few other folks wandered the beach, but there was enough space out here to enjoy the quiet. We watched the sun go down over the Pacific.

Our base camp at Sand Point meant we could leisurely explore north and south, so we decided to hike to Cape Alava the following day on the coastal stretch of the triangle trail. A couple miles up the coast are the Wedding Rocks, some of the most famous petroglyphs in Washington State and one of the key reasons we’d long wanted to do this trip.

Live bears and stone whales

Up early, we headed north just after sunrise and coffee. We strolled along, breathing the cool air, enjoying low-tide views, and listening to seals barking faintly in the distance. The coast here is rocky and requires some care when hiking. A couple of guys passed us, hiking fast, and when they were perhaps 25 yards in front of us I looked up and spotted black shapes moving on the beach far ahead. “Hey!” I yelled. “I think there are bears in front of you.” They stopped, we caught up, and the four of us spent a half-hour watching a mom and two cubs nosing in the seaweed for food.

All at once, we realized the bears were heading our way. Luckily, it was low tide, so we clambered over barnacle-covered rocks to give them a wide berth. They didn’t seem too fussed by our presence, although Mom kept an eye out. Eventually the bears headed into the forest and we continued on. What a way to start the day!

Soon thereafter we came to the Wedding Rocks. A rocky headland, the boulders contain about 50 petroglyphs, including well-known images of orcas and faces. Most of the glyphs are between 300 and 500 years old, although one image of a sailing ship dates to about 1800. We searched high and low but could only locate about a dozen petroglyphs. Time, wind, and water have faded many of the images.

Another mile of hiking brought us to Cape Alava. It was midmorning, and plenty of people were out on the beach. Just north of the cape is the Ozette village site, the westernmost point of the northern coast. This Makah whaling village was occupied until the 1920s, when the federal government forced families to move to Neah Bay so children could go to school. Ozette remained an important seasonal fishing and sea mammal hunting site for years afterward.

Then, in February 1970, a massive storm washed away much of the slope above the beach, revealing an unparalleled trove of Makah artifacts that had been preserved by clay deposited during a major landslide in 1700. House planks, fish hooks, canoe paddles, spear tips, bentwood boxes, and thousands of other items were carefully catalogued, preserved, and moved to Neah Bay, where many are displayed in the wonderful Makah Cultural and Research Center. Ozette still carries enormous cultural significance for the Makah people and is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the Pacific Northwest. The sheer number of artifacts, the excellent state of preservation for degradable items like baskets and cedar-bark mats and rope, and the largely intact village offered new insight into Northwest Coast culture.

Today, the slope is covered by brush, trees, driftwood, and sand. But it is evocative for those who know why this place matters. Two Makah men walked the beach to a small cabin nearby, a living reminder that we are recent arrivals indeed. Looking seaward, we listened to hauled-out seals barking, much louder now that we were at the cape, and studied Ozette Island, where whaling canoes likely left on their vital hunting journeys.

The petroglyphs at Wedding Rocks are thought to be connected to Ozette village. A number of divided oval glyphs represent fertility symbols, and some historians suggest these marked Makah unions, hence the site’s name. When you stand on the beach at the village site, you are standing on the Ozette Indian Reservation, a rectangular piece of land carved into the national park coastline. It’s part of the much larger Makah Indian Reservation about 20 miles north.

Mr. Adventure and I agreed that a future trip north from Cape Alava, perhaps all the way to Shi Shi Beach, is a must-do.

Back at Sand Point

The tide had risen by the time we headed south, making the hike back to camp a bit more challenging. Hauling ourselves over downed trees and through rocky outcrops, we were ready to relax when we arrived. The fog was rolling in, and I took snacks and water to the beach to watch the horizon disappear. A seal swam lazily back and forth in the small bay, and herons glided overhead to their rookeries.

 As the fog thickened, the beach became quieter. I sat for more than an hour on a driftwood log. Ever since I moved to the Pacific Northwest more than 25 years ago, I have loved the mystery and drama of the northern coast. The elegant lines of Northwest Coast art and the complex cultures it represents fascinate me. Sitting there, I felt as though I was experiencing a tiny bit of what my favorite artist, Emily Carr, must have felt as she lived and painted in remote coastal camps on Vancouver Island. The horizon disappeared into a murk of gray and green. It was like being in an Emily Carr painting, a glimpse into time long past. I didn’t want the moment to end. 

Yellow Banks

We weren’t in any rush to get home, so the next morning we headed south to Yellow Banks, named for the color of the exposed bluff above the beach. The hiking was a bit easier, much of it on sand with a few headlands to round or cross. The beach below Yellow Banks was broad and long, and we wished we could keep going south to see what was around the next headland. 

On the way back, we stopped to investigate tidepools adorned with sea anemones and limpets, and found a small, dead shark laid out on the rocks as if intentionally placed there.

Back at camp, we ate lunch and packed up, then reluctantly headed out. I couldn’t resist one more long look at the coastline, and silently promised myself I’d return. And this time it won’t take me 25 years to get there.