Olympic National Park

Did you know there are rainforests in the lower 48? Well, there are. These forests I type of are temperate rain forests on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, most of which is considered Olympic National Park.

Unfortunately, because of the high quality of the wood, much of the peninsula has suffered from extreme logging. And it shows. As beautiful as the park is, it was a rather depressing trip to get there (through devastated forests). It's actually a funny setup. The parks forests and rain forests are preserved in the middle of the peninsula and, after a stretch of private land, the park resumes with several miles of preserves coast. Here's a park map (it's a 3MB download). The other interesting note is no road traverses the park. US-101 winds around the park, and various spurs travel 10+ miles into the park to a dead end. This preserves the beauty of the park but makes it difficult to see a lot in a short period of time.

Day 1
We entered from the east side. The first spur we entered was Hurricane Ridge (see map). It was a nice overlook that introduced the diversity of the park. Here's a cool panoramic I (again, Photoshop) put together from the overlook.

Based on time, we decided to to head toward Sol Duc to camp for the night. On our way, we were able to check out Lake Crescent which provided some good photo opportunities. We also did a small hike to Marymere Falls.

On our way to the campground, we picked up some Washington beers and set up camp in the rainforest.

Day 2
We wanted to hike through the rainforest, and had the perfect opportunity with the trail at Sol Duc. One mile in we came to Sol Duc Falls (that's where you lose the tourists). We continued to hike through the rainforest for about another mile or two, until we came to snow. Then we turned around and headed back to the car.

The rain forest was beautiful. It was full of green life - trees would grow from dead trees. Decomposition and regrowth seemed to be on an exponential scale to our Midwestern eyes. Surprisingly enough, we didn't see any wildlife (other than birds and insects). And guess what? It rained.

Hoh Rainforest is supposed to be the best in Olympic, but after spending the night and a three-hour hike in another rainforest, we'd had enough. We wanted the beach.

So we continued on US-101 until we came to Ruby Beach. It's gorgeous. Aside: My girlfriend and I have taken two trips to Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina. During our two visits, we spent much time talking about how great it is to stand on a beach, turn away from the ocean, and not see giant condominiums, pools and transplanted palm trees. Ruby Beach had much of the same feel, except the trees were bigger, the outcroppings were interesting and beautiful and we were on the west coast.

We got our feet wet and explored for an hour or two and then began to look for a campsite. Kalaloch Campground is the only campground available for preregistration at Olympic, and it's on the beach. My hopes weren't high considering it was a Friday night. It turned out the campground was not really on the beach - you could walk to the beach - many of the sites were divided by trees, making it difficult to view the water. And I turned out to be correct - this giant campground was packed to the brim. We disappointingly moved on.

And then, all of a sudden (ten minutes later), we came across a campground called South Beach - we hadn't seen it on the map. But there it was - a primitive campsite with no potable water. But it was as on the beach as a campground can be. Check it out! After our delicious feast, I noticed the sky was going to give me a beautiful sunset; and I was right.


One of my favorite photos came from this sunset. I was down shooting sunset photos for about an hour or so when my companions came down to keep me company. At one point, one of them was in front of the camera while I was wanting to take another photo. While I was yelling (asking politely) for him to move, my other companion jumped in front of the camera while I shot the photo not wanting to miss the sky at that moment. And this moody photo came about. It's what The Beatles would have called a happy accident.

Day 3
The next day we awoke and jumped on the road in an effort to get to Crater Lake before dark (we were already at the southwestern edge of the park and therefore weren't missing out on anything else).

The entire Olympic NP photo album.

Next Post: Crater Lake & Redwood National Parks