Ozette Lake

August 20, 2020 Thursday

We passed up the hotel breakfast and ate at the Joshua Restaurant next door. Good food at reasonable prices with a 10% discount. Our plan for the day was to drive to Cape Flattery which offered interesting trails, views of lighthouses and going to the most northwestern point in the continental US. I though that we were to experience a two hour beautiful drive on slow curvy road along Juan de Fuca Strait. That was only partially fulfilled. After a short drive out of town we connected to State Highway 112, which follows the very scenic Strait of Juan de Fuca which connects Puget Sound with the Pacific Ocean and separates the Olympic Peninsula from Canada.  Its namesake has an interesting history. Given the name, I though he was Spanish. Not so. He was born in Greece after his grandparents fled from Constantinople in 1453 after its fall to the Ottomans because they were Christians. He became a mariner and entered the service of the Spanish king , initially in the Far East, but in 1587 his ship was captured by an English privateer and he was deposited in New Spain. Eventually he became a pilot in the Spanish Navy and at the direction of the Spanish Viceroy of New Spain he sailed north up the Pacific coast in search of the fabled Strait of Anian, which was allegedly the Northwest Passage. His first voyage ended in failure when the crew mutinied against the Army commander (Fuca was the pilot and master). However during his second voyage in 1592 he was successful in finding the Strait, although he misplaced its longitude). Upon his return de Fuce did not receive the rewards he felt that he had been promised. At the Viceroy's urging he went to Spain to plead his case for rewards, but was again unsuccessful. He toyed with a proposal to enter into the service of Queen Elizabeth's navy, but ultimately declined and returned to Greece where he died in 1602. The Strait was named for him by a British sea captain.

We drove along rugged cliffs on one side and the Strait on the other side. We saw eagles, some otters, but no whales.

In order to get to the trailhead for the cape we had to go through the Makah Indian reservation to the small town Neah Bay. However the virus intervened. Shortly after a road sign announced the town closing, we came to a checkpoint with a guard station manned by a what appeared to be a private security guard. He appeared to be Indian and he told us that we could not proceed because the town was closed to non-residents. I saw no point in arguing with him and assumed that the closure was due to a desire to minimize the spread of the virus on the reservation. So we turned around and retraced our route to the turn-off to Ozette Lake which we had mistakenly turned on to on our drive out. It was 21 miles to the lake area. The weather was not looking too good, a very gray sky and a heavy mist which at times molted into light rain. Thus I was surprised to see that the parking lot was almost full and there were quite a few people removing hiking and camping equipment from their vehicles. 

There were several deer loitering in a grassy area very near the parking area, seemingly oblivious to people. We used the bathroom, prepared the backpack and took our rain coats and umbrellas before starting the hike.

 

This location is part of the Pacific shoreline portion of the Olympic National Park. It is a narrow strip of land, just 6 miles at its widest point that runs for 60 miles along the wild and largely undeveloped Washington coast. While there was a Ranger station, we did not see any Rangers and payment of fees, entrance and camping, was on the honor system. 

From the trail map I learned that there were two trails to the ocean, Cape Alava and Sand Point and that one could walk both if you walked for 3 miles along the ocean, the Ozette Loop.  In total it would be 9 miles, too much in the early afternnon and with weather coming in, so we decided to just do the round trip Cape Alava trail, allegedly 6.2 miles. The trail is the western end of the 1200 mile Pacific Northwest trail which stretches from the Continental Divide in Montana to the Pacific Ocean during which it crosses three national parks, seven national forests, two other national trails, several mountain ranges and three states. This trail was designated as a National Recreation Trail in 1981 (not sure what that designation means) and at its end it is the western terminus at the westernmost point of the continental US. I was very impressed that I might be a small part of that.

Shortly after the trail began  we came to a moss covered bridge which crossed the Ozette River that flowed into Ozette Lake. The lake is 8 miles long and 3 miles wide. It is the largest unaltered lake in Washington.

The moss was a preview of the rain forest environment we were about to enter. About a quarter mile after the bridge we came to the trailhead sign.The bear warning only increased the apprehension level since we had just encountered a returning hiker who said that she had seen a bear.

We took the right fork. The forest we walked through was lush, green and wet. As usual with seemingly most of the forests in the US, this area was heavily logged into the early 20th century, but has regrown.

The weather was initially dry and the trail was packed gravel. However it began to rain lightly so we unfurled the umbrellas. Luckily, as we proceeded further into the forest the trail frequently became a beautiful ceder boardwalk. So we meandered through the forest under-story, largely shielded from the rain with lots of ferns, evergreens and red ceder trees.

After about 2.25 miles we came to the Ahlstrom's Prairie. This giant, soggy meadow was once farmed by two Swedish immigrants. Today all evidence of farming has given way to plants and animals. The final stretch was uphill, over a ridge. I strained to hear the roar or smell of the ocean as I knew that would be the end of the trail, but as the trail was more like 3.5 miles (that is what my pedometer said) it became a stagger to the end. However as we descended the ridge and I saw the ocean through the trees and heard its roar I felt a great sense elation and imagined that was what Lewis and Clark might have felt as they arrived at the Pacific coast.

The beach was rocky, foggy, windy and had a lot of driftwood. There even were some ducks paddling in the ocean. 

We spent a bit of time on the beach admiring the view and resting our legs. The weather was worsening, the rain was becoming steadier and it was approaching 4:30 pm, so we commenced the return trip. I was amazed that during our return trip we encountered several groups hiking in who were going to be camping that night. It appeared that it would be a rainy camp out. The wind broke my umbrella, but my raincoat kept my upper body dry. However the rain was steady and now dripping off the tress, so my shoes were a different story.

Some interesting sights on the way back. It is interesting how different things look when hiking in the opposite direction, but it was a pretty soggy trip back to the car.

We drove back to the hotel in the rain and arrived about 8:30, in time we thought to eat dinner at the Joshua restaurant adjacent to our hotel. However, even though the restaurant's posted hours were to 9:30, when we entered the adjacent bar (no food there) we were told that they closed early due to the virus. So dinner out of our food cooler.