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Ozette Loop
Cape Alava · Clallam County · added to the park 1940
Three boardwalk and beach legs make a 9-mile triangle from Lake Ozette to Cape Alava and Sand Point.
Trails at Ozette begin behind the ranger station. NPS lists Cape Alava at 3.1 miles of trail, boardwalk, and stairs through prairie and coastal forest to a rocky beach. Sand Point is 2.8 miles of mostly boardwalk to a wide sandy beach. A 3.1-mile hike on sand and rock connects them into a 9-mile loop.
As many as 130 homestead families lived at Lake Ozette in the early 1890s. Most left after the Olympic Forest Reserve was created in 1897. A strip of coast and the Ozette area were added to Olympic National Park in 1940. The campground has 15 sites.
A storm in 1970 exposed clay banks that held a Makah village buried by mudslides. Archeologists excavated 300-year-old longhouses. Three of five longhouses were fully unearthed and more than 50,000 artifacts recovered. Bone, shell, and stone artifacts told of a sea-mammal hunting culture dating back at least 2,000 years. Many artifacts are at the Makah Museum in Neah Bay. The sources below are the Olympic National Park Ozette brochure.
- Geography & Geology
- Indigenous History & Place
Sources (1)
government · Tier S
National Park ServiceLake Ozette Area Brochure
Last reviewed: September 21, 2026
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