Breathtaking beaches, glacier covered mountains and incredible temperate rainforests all wrapped up in one amazing National Park? You must be talking about Olympic. Designates as Mount Olympus National Monument by Theodore Roosevelt, the area officially became Olympic National Park in 1938. Covering a massive 1442 square miles, the National Park covers most of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. 95% of the park is designated wilderness, meaning you’re going to have to hike in if you want to really see it.
I have been to Olympic before, but really just to catch the highlights at the Hoh Rainforest, Second Beach, Crescent Lake and Marymere Falls. On this trip I spent almost two weeks in the area and saw so much more of what the park had to offer. I did a four day, three night backpacking trip up the Hoh River Trail to Glacier Meadows and then a three day, two night hike around the High Divide/Seven Lakes Basin Loop, both of which were spectacular. I also visited the Quilault Rainforest, Ruby Beach, and Sol Duc Falls while I was there and stopped into the beautiful park lodges at Quinault Lake and Crescent Lake. The highlight for me was definitely the namesake Mount Olympus, but the quiet nights, the sound of water and the incredible wildlife also made me happy. I hope you enjoy these photos of the magical region of Olympic National Park.
Hello Everybody! It’s hard to believe it’s October already. The leaves are definitely turning here in Washington State and the stores are filled with skeletons and pumpkins. It’s definitely starting to cool down and the days are getting noticeably shorter. This week has brought me from the heart of spectacular Olympic National Park to the state capital of Olympia with a couple of cool small towns sandwiched in between. I put in another 20 miles on the trail this week which I’m pretty proud of and finally got my views of Mount Olympus. After a couple of weeks of small towns and national park, it was nice to return to the city, although Olympia is hardly a thriving metropolis. I finished off my week with a night off the road in the classic Olympic Club hotel in Centralia. All in all, it’s been another great week on the road and I can’t wait to tell you all about it…
Hello Everyone.
I hope you are all having a wonderful September out there. September and October are probably my favorite months of the year, with fall colors and moderate temperatures and when the days are still long enough to get a lot out of. I’ve spent all of this past week since my last newsletter in and around Olympic National Park. I’m headed back into the backcountry tomorrow, so I wanted to get this post done before I take off down the trail. It’s been a spectacular week in the scenery department and I will definitely have plenty of photo editing to do next week, but I’ll give you a preview of those photos along with this post.
When I wrote last week, I was on my way into Olympic and made my first stop at Lake Quinault on the southern end of the park. I enjoyed a couple of lovely short hikes in the rainforest there and a delicious dinner at the Lake Quinault Lodge. The lodge is a classic old park lodge designed by the same architect who did the Inn at Old Faithful in Yellowstone, and while I couldn’t afford to stay there, I could definitely afford dinner and a beer on the veranda. I had a lovely filet of King Salmon in the Roosevelt Dining Room and after the sun went down I sat reading my book by the fire until it was time to fade out into the night.
The following day I headed around the lake to the Wilderness Information Center to chat with the ranger there about my upcoming hikes and to have them print out my backcountry permits for me. They were great and very helpful and had a lovely ranger station in a field in the rainforest. I took a short stroll out to the old Kestler Homestead site nearby before making my way back to the highway and north to the Kalaloch campground along the coast. There I was able to get my backpacking gear out from where I store it under my bed, blow off the dust from not using it for a few years and get it packed and ready for the morning. The only issue I faced was the need to pack a warmer and bulkier sleeping bag than I would have liked which took up a lot of space in my backpack, but it was needed and definitely appreciated during the cold nights on the trail…
