Third Beach Trailhead - Search Nearby - Added by Erik Turner
Amazing scenery with sounds of the ocean and gorgeous backcountry beaches. You will see sea-stacks and tide pools, with easy hiking, and great camp spots.
Start off hiking down to the very popular Third Beach, starting from the Third Beach TH near La Push, WA. Once down at the beach, push on beyond the sometimes crowded beach and enter one of the most amazing places in WA.
Be careful of tides (check the charts!) and be comfortable scrambling up and down slippery muddy trails (there are handlines of decent quality). What you gain for all the hard work, however, is ever decreasing crowds, and increasing beauty, until the crescendo.... Toleak Point.
Heaven on earth! Sea stacks, beaches, flat spots off the beach for camp... this place has it all. Hopefully you're lounging around in good weather, but our trip was half fog and half sun, and we had a blast the whole time.
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Nearby Adventures
Camp at Third Beach
1.2 Miles Round Trip - -300 ft gain
Backpack the Olympic Coast
10 Miles Round Trip - 1028 ft gain
Camp at Second Beach in Olympic NP
1.4 Miles Round Trip
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Overall rating:
One Of My Favorite Coast Backpacking Trips
I did this trip in the middle of April during a fairly short good weather window. I wasn't lucky and it rained most of the hike in. Great little campground and plenty of solitude. Ps: the backcountry toilet's walls had collapsed when I was here. Definitely a loo with a view.
Gorgeous views, but watch out for the headland trails!
The headland trails you have to climb up and over along this trail are no cakewalk, ropes are provided but you are still scaling quite vertical bluffs, and with a full pack on it can get a little dicey, especially when the bluffs are wet! There was also a ranger checking every group's permits when I was there the first week of September so definitely make sure you secure one before heading out. The sea stacks are very impressive and make the perfect foreground for night photography!
Permits are required :)
Thanks for the review, Cristal. A minor correction is that you DO need a permit. It is a wilderness area within Olympic NP. See this link for the map showing the camp location: https://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/upload/1-16-15.pdf
