Olympic National Park: A boardwalk to a wild shore

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — There was gentle competition for the remaining sites nestled in the trees on the coastline campground at Sand Point, the most popular backpacking site in the park. Wire lines festooned with raccoon-safe food indicated that the first few sites were full. So, too, were the bigger areas capable of hosting a larger party. But there within a shell's throw of the beach was a tiny, north-facing site with a welcome mat of soft grass.

"Look, a grassy site," I said, exclaiming our good luck as much as stating the obvious nature of the material underfoot.

The demand for campsites on a sunny weekend is predictable, given the ease and pleasure of the hike in from the Lake Ozette Ranger Station and the access the trail provides to one of the most pristine sections of Pacific Coast in the Lower 48 states.

On the way through a forest of pine, cedar, ferns, salal and across boggy soils redolent with the smell of decay, we could hear the sound of surf in the distance, until at last we could taste the scent of the seashore. The boardwalk irons out the irregularities of typical trails, making it an easy outing for beginners and families.

The boardwalk owes its origins to pioneer settlers, including Lars Ahlstrom, who built a wooden causeway to overcome the boggy soils found in places between Lake Ozette and the coast. When the coastal strip and Lake Ozette were added to Olympic National Park in 1953, the park service inherited a mixture of trails, roads and boardwalks developed over the years by farmers who raised sheep, cattle and tree-fruit in the area.

In the '70s, the park service began installing a near-continuous boardwalk from the ranger station to the campgrounds at Cape Alava and Sand Point, each approximately three miles from the station and each other. It took us about 90 minutes to hike in from the ranger station to our luxurious grass camping site. But we needn't have fretted about not finding a place to camp — the sandy beach around the point from our woodsy corner already sported about a dozen tents, with room for more.

One of the joys of backpacking is outdoor cooking, and I had brought along a boil-in-the-bag salmon with a rich pesto sauce ideal for camp-stove dining. As simple as the dinner was, it did require one key element — hot water. That's when I discovered that I'd brought the wrong size of propane canister. Incompatibility between the stove and gas canister was overcome by mooching hot water from our neighbors — Bill, Marty, Heather and Art, from Ballard. They had several stoves and willingly shared.

From one pot of boiling water we heated the entrée, poured about a half-pint over couscous and then used the remainder to make cocoa.

Next morning, I hit up another group — Matt, Nick and Rich, Evergreen State College alumni from Olympia. This was their annual camping trip. They'd hiked in to Cape Alava the previous day and then traversed the beach down the coast to Sand Point. It had taken them four ankle-straining hours to cross piles of kelp and scramble over rocks. "We're glad we had on boots," said Matt.

I'd followed the advice on the park service Web site and wore sneakers, which offer better traction on the boardwalk, which can be slippery after rain. No problem, I had boots back at the car, so I hiked back to get them and then in under an hour reached Cape Alava via the other side of the Ozette triangle. I then meandered down the coast, without the backpack.

This got me thinking, that the 9.3-mile loop can be easily completed in a day without the normal encumbrance of camping gear. As the fall weather turns to rain on the coast, consider camping at the trailhead and completing the loop as an easy day outing. But on reflection, there's little to beat the sleep-inducing sounds of the Pacific lapping 12 feet from your tent on the last wild shore in the mainland United States.

Gordon Black is a free-lance writer who lives on Bainbridge Island.