Parking
Use the Third Beach Trailhead lot on La Push Road. It holds about 20 cars, and parking is very limited; carpool or arrange a shuttle if possible.
Overview
About Third Beach Trail
Why go
- A forest walk ends at a broad Pacific beach with sea stacks.
- A short route with a clear coastal payoff.
Heads up
- The final descent is steep and can be muddy.
- The trailhead parking area is very limited.
Map & elevation
The route
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
6 active Olympic alerts
- CautionUS 101 Hoh River Bridge reduced to one laneUS 101 at the Hoh River Bridge is restricted to one lane of alternating traffic; obey the signals and 25 mph speed limit.Official details
- ClosureStaircase wilderness trails and campsites remain closedWilderness trails and campsites around Staircase remain closed during recovery from the Bear Gulch Fire; the developed Staircase area, including the Rapids Loop, campground, and ranger station, is…Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Olympic Tour Guide
Your drive to Third Beach Trail, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Olympic National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Olympic audio tourRecorded for this trailhead
Third Beach: Forest, Stacks and a Waterfall0:00 / 0:26
“Up ahead is the Third Beach trailhead, for a forest walk to the sea stacks of Giants Graveyard.”
Plays as you drive up to this trailhead in the Parkwolf Olympic Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- The Raven’s Wedge-Shaped Tail
- Second Beach: Forest to Sea Stacks
- Mora: A Forest Base Near Rialto
- A Mayfly’s Brief Flight
- 204 audio storiesacross Olympic’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Olympic Marmot, Humpback Whale, Grey Whale, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 148 trails, 94 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking Third Beach Trail
A short forest-to-coast hikeThird Beach Trail is the public out-and-back from its La Push Road trailhead to the Pacific…
Third Beach Trail is the public out-and-back from its La Push Road trailhead to the Pacific shore. Plan on about 2.8 miles round trip and roughly two hours, plus time you spend on the beach. Published one-way measurements differ by a tenth, from about 1.3 to 1.4 miles, so treat the mileage as approximate. It is listed as a year-round walk, and it makes a good short forest outing with an open beach at the end; keep enough energy for the climb back.
Under the hemlocksThe broad, graveled start is close to level, with tall hemlocks overhead and a creek rushing…
The broad, graveled start is close to level, with tall hemlocks overhead and a creek rushing nearby. Look around at eye level for shelf fungi, lichens and moss. After about a mile the path narrows and the easy grade gives way to a short, steep descent with only a few switchbacks.
The beach entranceThe last drop can be muddy, especially after rain.
The last drop can be muddy, especially after rain. The beach sits a couple of hundred feet below the trailhead, so you climb back up the same slope on the return. The trail reaches the shore by a creek mouth, where driftwood logs often pile across the way to the sand. Pick your footing over the logs; they can shift.
Look southFrom the beach, the tree-topped sea stacks of Giants Graveyard rise to the south.
From the beach, the tree-topped sea stacks of Giants Graveyard rise to the south. They make the defining view here, especially with some of the driftwood in the foreground. A pit toilet sits on a short side trail south of the creek. Bald eagles, seals and birds on the stacks are all possible sightings; whale migration is noted in March and April, and again in October.
Keep the headlands in mindThird Beach is the turnaround for this hike.
Third Beach is the turnaround for this hike. The longer South Coast route continues beyond it, but Teawhit Head and Taylor Point cannot be rounded at shore level. Check a tide chart and map before exploring farther, and never try to cross a hazardous headland at high tide. Overnight camping is a separate trip that requires a wilderness permit and approved food storage. Pets and wheeled devices are prohibited on coastal trails and beaches.
A lived-in coastlineMuch of this coast became Olympic Wilderness in 1988.
Much of this coast became Olympic Wilderness in 1988. The park describes local tribal ancestors traveling by cedar canoe along this shoreline between fishing villages. The sea stacks and rocky coves are part of a long-used coastal landscape as well as the view at the end of the trail.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Olympic
710 sightingsOlympic MarmotMost seen around 11 AMSighting map
30 sightingsHumpback WhaleMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
42 sightingsGrey WhaleMost seen around noonSighting map
23 sightingsMountain LionMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
71 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
306 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 11 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Olympic. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
