Ozette Triangle Hike, July 2015

Ozette Triangle
Date: July 31, 2015
Difficulty: 3 out of 10
Distance: 9.4 Miles / 15 Kilometers Roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 300 feet / 91 Meters
Time: 4 to 5 hours
Location: Near Lake Ozette, Washington
Users Group: Hikers Only
Permits: National Forest Pass
Trail Conditions: Dry
Hiking With: Linna Freeman, Tao Song, Craig, Andrew & TC Patterson, Maxime Tissier, Emelie & Eric Espling

The Ozette Triangle www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lake-ozette hike was my first Olympic coastal hike and it was awe-inspiring. I had the pleasure to share this hike with my wife Linna, Max Tessier, Tao Song, Craig, TC & Andrew Patterson and Emelie & Eric Espling.

This is actually a fairly easy hike, but when you combine all three legs to make it a loop/triangle you will definitely feel your legs spent some energy, especially hiking along the rocky sandy beach. The first 3.3 mile leg is trekking through thick forest on board walk over the tiny Ozette river, you can tell that there has been some trail work done recently…many of the cedar planked boards have been replaced with synthetic ones.

Once you hit the beautiful Cape Alava, you head south for 3.1 miles on a rough and rocky shoreline. You will notice tiny offshore islands and wildlife. We could hear the sea lions barking and one that probably quit barking a week or two ago…for it was laying on the beach bloated with no head. We purposely started in the afternoon to make sure we had low tide to enjoy our beach adventure.

At the end of the beach scramble you hit Sand Point at 6.3 miles, you then complete your triangle with another 3 mile boardwalk trek back to the car. This is a beautiful coastal hike at low tide, but it takes a good couple of hours of driving on twisting and winding roads to get to it.