2 Nights in the ONP

In the spring of 2001, in preparation for a week long hike into Hells Canyon, we spent 2 nights at Alava Head in the Olympic National Park. 

Alava Head is in the very Northwest corner of the state of Washington.   West of Seattle, Alava head faces the Pacific in one of the wettest parts of the Northwest coast.  It is also one of the most majestic places on the Pacific coast.  With deep orange sunsets over the sea, areas of ancient rain forest, and sacred Native American carvings etched in stone at the surf line, Alava head is a rare and majestic place.

It had been seven years since my last visit and I was shocked to see the camp sites heavily trampled.  The trails were better maintained but the remoteness of Alava head was ruined for us by overflowing campgrounds.   

Skunk Cabbage

Board walks take hikers through steeping wetland marshes that would normally make this part of the coast inaccessible. The walkways are hewn out of red cedar fallen near by and are kept up in the extremely wet environment with great effort by the park service.

The shore was once miles out to sea but has been beaten back in recent geologic history (the last 900 years or so) to the out cropping at Alava head.

Here my friend Rich G. is rounding a rock outcropping that is impassable at high tide.  

The negative spring tides exposed miles of shallows.

This is only a small sample of many hieroglyphs left in centuries past.   

The Tide Goes Out

Low Tide Passage