Olympic
National Park
An adventure that is uniquely “Pacific Northwest,” Olympic National Park combines an alpine mountain range with a temperate rain forest and rocky Pacific beaches. Founded in 1938, the Park and the adjacent Olympic National Forest dominate the Olympic Peninsula with the Olympic Mountain range and the 7,890-foot Mount Olympus at the center. The area in and around the Park has been and remains important land for indigenous American people. Beavers, owls, bats, coyotes, foxes, the Canadian Lynx, and many other creatures patrol the Park.
Just four days in the Park does not seem like enough, but the Park-to-Park tour will make the most of our time on the Olympic Peninsula. Hurricane Ridge, Elwah Valley, Sol Duc Hot Springs, Lake Cresent, and Kalaloch fill out the itinerary. The highlights will be hiking the Ozette Triangle Loop and visiting the Hoh Rain Forest, home to one of the quietest places on earth.
Itinerary
We are presenting our itinerary as we lived it. Not the plan, but rather what we were actually able to accomplish. Naturally there are some missed goals and some serendipitous surprises. We always rolled with the punches and made the best out of our time in the national parks. Below we have included some notes that explain how the itinerary changed from what we had in mind.
It’s important to know that these plans were made to suit the abilities and interests of two young girls aged 9 and 11. We feel confident that any family on their “Every Kid Outdoors Summer” (4th grade) could handle this itinerary. For hikes, we have listed the distance, elevation gain, and time that we tracked, which may differ from published (or actual) measurements.
Day 1
Morning
Depart North Cascades
Afternoon
Auto Ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend
Evening
Overnight at KOA Port Angeles
Day 2
Morning
Port Angeles Visitor Center
Madison Falls
Salt Creek Recreation Area
Aftenoon
Marymere Falls
Evening
Overnight at Sol Duc Campground
Day 3
Morning
Lake Crescent
Afternoon
Sol Duc Falls
Sol Duc Hot Springs
Evening
Overnight at Sol Duc Campground
Day 4
Morning & Afternoon
Hike: Ozette Triangle Loop (10.3 miles, 600 feet, 6 hours)
Evening
Kalaloch Beach
Tree of Life
Overnight at Kalaloch Campground
Day 5
Morning
Hoh Rainforest
Hike: Hoh River Trail / “One Square Inch of Silence” (8.1 miles, 300 feet, 4 hours)
Afternoon
Hoh Visitor Center
Junior Ranger Program
Ruby Beach
Evening
Overnight at Kalaloch Campground
Notes
The day we arrived on the Olympic Peninsula, the skies were cloudless. The next morning, the winds had shifted and smoke from wildfires in Oregon had rolled in. Rangers at the visitor center in Port Angeles advised us to not even make the drive to Hurricane Ridge, because the visibility was zero. So we swapped that out for a spontaneous visit to Salt Creek Recreation Area (a country park) where the girls could check out tide pools. Salt Creek wasn’t on our radar until a conversation with a Ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park, who explained that if the low tides on the Pacific Coast of the park didn’t line up with our schedule, we might consider Salt Creek. It worked out very well!
We also rearranged the order that we his some of the waterfalls, to fit our driving path better. On day three we added a visit to Lake Crescent for the entire morning, because the weather was conducive to a dip in the lake.
On day four, we decided to hit the Hoh Rainforest in the morning instead of the afternoon, because we’d heard that the wait to get into the park at that location was long. We still sat in hour-long line outside the gate, but because we went early we had plenty of time for hiking in Hoh.
< Previous National Park
Next National Park >