Cape Alava — Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023

As a previous trip report suggested, this trail can indeed be done in plain athletic shoes, at least on this particular dry and warm October day!

For just the Cape Alava out-and-back trail (not the full Ozette triangle): the trail is almost entirely boardwalks, with occasional gravel. Barely any mud or puddles. There are a variety of wooden bridges to cross, including rustic ones being retaken by the rain forest, as well as several bridges that smelled and felt brand new and were quite sturdy. (Thank you to those who maintain this trail! It was in great shape other than the occasional missing board.).

This trail will take you through a lovely variety of biomes: the initial view of a large freshwater lake with red-winged blackbirds singing, then into a loamy cedar forest, then through rainforest with ripe huckleberries and salal galore, then through open swamp meadows with a mysterious strong odor, then dry coastal forest before the final descent onto kelp-laden rocky beach. Keep your eyes out for all the lovely fungi other trip reports have mentioned! We saw a huge variety of colors and sizes.

The beach itself had harlequin ducks, oystercatchers, seals, cormorants, sea otters, sea lions, and many gulls. There might be some tide pools that form when the tide is lower. The rocks we scouted just had a few sea anemones.

Despite the listed elevation gain being only 100ft, there are several sections of long “stairs” up and down throughout the boardwalk. The overall distance we measured was a bit longer than the listed 6.2 miles - plus you may want to add in some beach walking.

The campsites at Cape Alava were all unoccupied though we did see some backpackers arriving as we left.

There is a standard national park toilet at the trailhead plus full restrooms that were listed as closed for the season. There’s a small pit toilet at the campsites.