Olympic National Park Deserves a Gold Medal

We were embarrassingly uninformed and unprepared for how diverse and impressive Olympic National park is! You can see mountains, glaciers, rainforest, lakes and coastal beaches all within this gem of a park!

Home Away from Home

The house was at the top of this hill where you see the tree cut out below making for a thrill ride going up and even more so going back down!

We Loved this beautiful AirBnB in Port Angeles that sits on a hillside overlooking the ocean. It had stunning views of Baker Mountain, the San Juan Islands and the Straight of Juan de Fuca. The property was amazing - we enjoyed the views, the wild life and the seclusion the property offered while still being close to the park, restaurants, etc. The hosts welcomed us with a bottle of wine, eggs from the chickens on the property and plums from their tree. We wish we would have scheduled more time at this place - enjoying the deer, chickens, and hummingbirds !

Hurricane Hill via Hurricane Ridge

We did the Hurricane Hill Trail ~3.2 miles round trip. The trail was recently paved making the first 1/2 mile of easy grade super easy. The trail has a total elevation gain of 700 feet, gained mostly in the last very steep 1.1 mile. There are gorgeous mountain views along the ridge as you walk this trail.

The 360 degree views at the summit are certainly worthy of the effort to get there. On one side we could see the snow covered peaks and glaciers of the Olympic Mountains and the other side we could see the coastline that divides the US and Canada.

We had a clear day - so we had great views all around. From the summit looking to the north we could see Unicorn Horn and Unicorn Peak .

Past these, we could see Port Angeles, the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island Canada, and snow covered Baker Mountain.

To the southwest we could see the glaciers on the Olympic Mountains - including Mount Olympus.

Lake Crescent

We stopped for lunch both days at Lake Crescent - large, glacier carved lake. We found picnic spots that let us privately enjoy the lake!

Salmon Cascades

We drove ~ 5 miles down the Sol Duc Road, where there is an overlook to watch the ambitious coho salmon leap over the falls on their way upstream the Sol Duc River to spawn (and then die). We climbed down the rocks to the base of the falls - it was a warm sunny day and I could have stayed all day watching the fish leap and try to scale the rocks to get upstream- loved, loved, loved this!

HOH Rainforest

We enjoyed a nice dark and misty day in the HOH Rainforest. It was like walking into an entirely different world!