Olympic National Park

“Glacier-capped mountains, old-growth temperate rain forests, and over 70 miles of wild coastline . . . the park protects several distinctively different and relatively pristine ecosystems. These places shelter a unique array of habitats and life forms resulting from thousands of years of geographic isolation. Olympic National Park is a place unmatched in the world.”
nps.gov

Overview

Olympic National Park is certainly one of the most diverse US National Parks and one of the most accessible–it’s in Northwestern Washington, just a couple hours from Seattle and short ferry ride from Victoria Island and Vancouver BC. The entire Pacific Northwest (PNW) tour, from the giant redwoods of the California coast, through Oregon, Washington, and to Victoria, offers jaw-dropping landscapes, but if you’re time-pressed, Olympic NP is the best bang-for-your-buck.

The park can be roughly divided into alpine mountain, rainforest, and coast. Mount Olympus, at 7,980ft, is the highest point, and is just 33 miles from the coast. Hurricane Ridge, near Port Angeles, on the North side of the park, is your best bet for alpine adventure. We were visiting the park to escape the PNW wildfires of summer of 2017, which created the worst smoke in the Seattle area since the Mt St. Helens eruption. We escaped the heat and ash to the West side, bypassing Hurricane Ridge altogether.

The Rainforest

Giant old-growth trees covered in moss. Hall of Mosses trail, Hoh Rainforest

140 to 167 inches (12 to 14 feet) of rain each year creates green moss that covers everything, just as if someone went crazy with aerosol silly string spray. If you expected to look down to find green, you’ll be awed to look up at hundreds of feet at green.

Old-growth sitka spruce and western hemlock are the anchors for the moss. These old-growth forests are >200 years old, and with the amazing weather conditions of the PNW, are 250+ft tall and 30-60ft in circumference.

By acreage, there’s very few old growth forests left in the US–most of the PNW forests were logged in the early 1900s. Though many areas were replanted, few forests have the aged grandeur of our national parks-protected old growth (Redwoods National Park is the other).

Hall of Mosses trail, Hoh Rainforest

Green even under water.

For the fungus lover, there’s tons of mushrooms to find right off the beaten hiking paths.

Campground at Hoh Rainforest covered in smoke from PNW wildfires. The rainforest “rarely gets above 80 degrees,” but reached almost 90 degrees the summer of 2017.

The Coast

Kalaloch Beach, looking directly into the campground.

Kalaloch Beach

Good thing the tide comes in every day to wash away the poo.

4 bearded gnomes! Kalaloch Nature Trail.

Kalaloch Nature Trail coastal rainforest.

Burl, anyone? Kalaloch Nature Trail.

Hidden in the Kalaloch campground.

Cool facts about the park

922,651 acres
73 miles of wilderness coast
3,000mi of rivers and streams
60 named glaciers
1,200 native plant taxa
20 reptile and amphibian species, 37 fish species, 300 bird species, 56 mammal species (inc. 24 marine mammal species)
22 threatened or endangered species
16 developed campgrounds
64 trailheads
611 miles of trail
168 miles of road
8 Native American tribes in the region
Source: nps.gov

Wildfires

The summer of 2017 was one of the worst wildfire seasons on record with >8 million acres burned, or the size of Maryland. We got caught camping in this summer of heat, humidity, and smoke. It seemed like fire after fire was attributed to humans.

The NPS has a handy chart showing historical wildfires in Olympic NP, which ones are lightning-started vs human-started, and what the yearly rainfall is. You can see that in the wettest parts, on the coast and the west side where the Hoh and Quinalt rainforests are, and in the northern part near Port Angeles, have been dominated by human-started fires. The high alpine regions are dominated by lightning fires. Surprisingly, even on the drier East side, none of the fires have been as large as the ones in recent years in the PNW.