Two Girls Roving: Day 10 – Ozette Triangle Backpacking Cape Alava to Sand Point

Two Girls Roving: The tale of a 16 day, 3522 mile road trip to the Pacific Northwest in celebration of my friend’s college graduation! Follow along for all the shenanigans through thousands of miles, eight National Park Service units, night after night of camping, and even some coastal backpacking!

September 1, 2024

What a drastic change from the previous day’s sunny, warm weather! Thick fog enveloped Cape Alava as I peered out from the tent after a restful night next to the ocean. Everything felt damp, and there was a chill in the air that happens when things get that humid. Time for some moody coastal weather!

It was our second day on the Ozette Triangle, a popular backpacking and hiking route in the coastal area of Olympic National Park. Essentially an equilateral triangle, today Janice and I would head down the sand from Cape Alava to Sand Point for about 3.4 miles. Sand Point would be our destination for the night. (I will be doing an entire separate blog post with all the nitty gritty details and logistics of backpacking the Ozette Triangle to spare readers of this blog all the little details.)

We had a bit of a slow morning, but not too slow as we had a couple of tidal pinch points to navigate around before high tide rolled in midday. Breakfast and coffee were made, and I made one final run to the tannin-colored creek to filter water to get us through the end of our trip (I was unsure where the water source was at Sand Point and if it was still flowing as NPS warns it dries up in late summer, so we just figured we’d haul everything we’d need). Shortly before 10am we made our exit from our lovely campsite at Cape Alava to see what the trail ahead would have in store for us.

Well, first… there’s really no “trail.” Our route would just follow the shore line. Going was slow and tricky in many parts due to the soft sand, gooey seaweed, and slippery rocks. Then we started finding rocks and sea glass that we liked, and suddenly every few steps one of us was bending down to take a closer look at something cool.

Wedding Rocks was our first point of tidal restriction, and we seemed to time it just perfectly with the incoming tide and made it around. In our hustle we did miss looking for the petroglyphs located in this area – a slight bummer! (More about the petroglyphs can be found here.) We just kept at our forward progress, interrupted by sea glass and cool rocks.

Just a short bit before Sand Point we hit the final tidal restriction point of the journey, and yep, we were restricted. Janice and I sat down in an empty campsite to snack and launch our plan of attack – we could wait several hours for the tide to roll back out or we could take the headland trail bypass. Not wanting to lose out on a good campsite, we chose the bypass. We took a short cut through the foliage to the headland trail, with me singing “I’m a dinosaur, I’m a dinosaur!” incredibly loud… only to pop out to a group of people quizzically looking at the commotion coming towards them.

Flabbergasted, Janice took one look up the vertical trail with a rope dangling down it. “The ranger made this sound so easy!” It’s true, when we picked up our permits the ranger in the wilderness office was incredible casual about it with “oh, you just easily go around if the tide is high.” With thirty pound awkward backpacks on, we hoisted ourselves upward, pushing out the thought of “never trust a rope you just found.” Janice and I made it safely to the top to be faced with an eroded vertical descent and two rope choices.

“Well, this is sketchy,” I announced as I chose the rope to my left and tried to figure out how the lower myself down the muddy embankment that was eroded beyond vertical. I decided to trust my puny arms, and “repelled” down without being harnessed in and just hoping my arms would hold out. I chose wisely, as the rope to the right ended about twenty feet off the ground. Once down, I coached Janice safely back to earth. I was so damn proud of Janice for conquering this headland trail, as it was something she had never tried before and she did it wearing a heavy pack!

After expending way too much energy on our rock-climbing-without-rocks experience, we trudged the last bit to camp at Sand Point. Luckily a campsite was still available in the trees, and we took to setting up. Overall, Sand Point was a bit more crowded in, and our neighbors were uncomfortably close at times, but stoke was high to explore and spend another amazing night on the coast.

After a dehydrated pho lunch we took to exploring. I took to climbing up Sand Point, the namesake point that provided panoramic views over the Pacific Ocean and beaches to the north and south. There I go, finding something tall to stand on!

I then joined Janice for exploring tide pools uncovered around Sand Point as the tide headed out. We then headed south down the beach, exploring a sand bar exposed during low tide, admiring the anemones and sea birds.

As we headed back to camp, we were stopped by some people that warned us a black bear and her two cubs were just right around the corner and visible from the top of Sand Point. BEARS!! Janice and I headed up the hill and were treated to a show as mamma and babes dug for dinner under the seaweed. This is definitely the closest I have been able to observed bears (aside from the time I drove right past famous 399 and her cubs in Grand Teton National Park), and was such an amazing experience. Thank goodness for digital cameras, because my shutter finger was kept busy as I snapped photo after photo. Also thank goodness for a 300mm lens… these photos make it appear like I was much closer than I actually wise. Don’t worry, I was a safe viewing distance away! Hauling the heavy DSLR set up was beyond worth it!

All the campers at Sand Point would have our fair share of bear shenanigans as the bears headed through people’s campsites (thankfully not ours), which left some folks unable to cook their dinners until they moved on. So yeah, that requirement for bear canisters? For good reason! A good reminder for us to keep a clean camp heading into nightfall (the bear spray was of course, logically, in the car at the trailhead).

We wrapped up the evening with dinner and beers. Due to the low clouds, there was no spectacular sunset, so we retired to the tent for some reading before lights out. Just another amazing night on the Washington coast!

Travel states, facts, & things with no context from Janice and I:

• 3.4 miles of hiking, with 135 feet of elevation gain (probably thanks to the headland trail) in 3 hours 20 minutes
• 1 NPS unit visited
  • Olympic National Park
    • $30 fee (good for 7 consecutive days) or use an annual federal lands pass such as the America the Beautiful pass
• If a bear poops on the beach, there is a bear in the area

Accommodations for the night:

• Sand Point Backcountry Site
  • $8 per person plus a $6 reservation fee (2024)
  • Wilderness permit information
  • Moderate cell service (Verizon) – we could get texts and a few photos out.
  • The details:
    • There are numerous campsites to choose from with them all being first-come-first-serve. If choosing to camp on the beach, ensure you are set up well above the high tide mark.
    • There is a pit toilet
    • There is a water source… somewhere. We did not seek it out as we had enough water.
      • The water will be yellowish-brown in color. It is from tannins from plant matter, and is safe to drink.
    • Bear canisters are required for food storage. And there are bears.
    • No campfires are ever allowed at Sand Point.
  • If coming from Cape Alava, there are two tidal restriction points to reach Sand Point. Ensure you have a tide table (and know how to read it, the wilderness rangers can assist with this). There are headland trails to bypass the restrictions but can be incredibly challenging, especially with large backpacks.