There is so much diversity in this park that it is hard to capture it all in these pictures and post.
I was really excited to step foot in a rainforest here in the United States. Olympic National Park is known for its beaches, mountains, rivers, and of course temperate rainforests. This was a very unique park and it's huge. We spent several days at this park and stayed at different locations. There are a ton of photos I took at this park so it was hard to pick and choose which ones made this blog post! 😊
Forks, WA is a place of interest for Twilight lovers. We saw a couple of signs in the area related to the movie. I guess the threat level of vampires was high unless it always is? lol.
For Olympic National Park we started this section of our trip at our Air bnb on Lake Sutherland and went counterclockwise around the park.
I would have liked to spent another night at our Air Bnb, the hot tub was relaxing and the views spectacular! The location was also good for a lot of the trails near Lake Crescent.
Our first hike was at Sol Duc Falls which was a bit of a drive to get to. There are hot springs at the resort there but we did not check them out due to time.
It was an important part of my research to find the low and high tides of the beaches so that we could see some of the marine life! Lots of colorful starfish and sea anemones were seen on the rocks! The beaches here are not anything like the east coast in that there are huge rock structures everywhere. Rialto and Ruby beaches were fun to visit! These are the beaches you always see on the covers of magazines for the west coast!
Ruby Beach closed it's parking lot due to construction the day after we visited so we were glad to have fit that one in! We decided to do Ruby Beach at sunset.
We were fortunate to visit Neah Bay because the last couple of years the area was closed off to the public due to Covid. The Makah Indian Tribe resides in this area.
The Cape Flattery Trail was very scenic and the color of the water is vibrant! There were several different species of water birds hanging out in the area.
We visited the Tree of Life which is near the Kalaloch Campground. It is amazing how this tree is growing and surviving the way it is!
Lake Crescent was showing off its beautiful blue water colors when we visited as well. We saw a couple of kids swimming around Devil's punchbowl (the water was freezing!)
The sun reflected off of Marymere Falls just right for a nice shot of us together. I think I need to invest in a legit selfie stick so I don't have to bother others for pictures!
The Hoh Rainforest was super touristy but an absolute must to see. The concentration of biomass is unlike any of other area of the US. The rainforest was looking lush and very green for our visit.
Don't you just love the moss hanging from the trees!?
We also visited the Quinalt Rain Forest and it was not as busy as the Hoh! The Quinalt Lodge has a lot of character which is where we stayed for one night. We also stayed at Kalaloch Lodge which had great ocean views (I liked it better personally).
We saw lots of elk along the road throughout our trip and black tailed deer! This family of elk had some babies!
The marmots were also out and about on Hurricane Hill.
I would say none of the hikes we did on this trip were difficult except for Hurricane Hill at Hurricane Ridge as it was definitely more on the moderate side, but it is paved and very accessible. It was one of my favorite trails that we did on this trip. We also lucked out and had really good weather for our hike. There were views no matter which way you turned!
In the parking lot, the gray jays were back at it again begging us for food lol.
Two more sites we visited were the world's largest sitka spruce tree and the big cedar tree.
Here is our itinerary for this part of our trip:
June 13 monday
Breakfast at hotel
Check out from Ship Harbor hotel
Whale watch tour 10 am to 3 pm
Lunch/early dinner at front street in coupeville
Travel to ferry
Ferry to Port townsend from Coupeville
Travel to Port Angeles from Port Townsend ferry
Check in air bnb on lake Sutherland for 2 nights
June 14 tuesday - Olympic National Park
Breakfast at air bnb
Sol Duc falls
Lake crescent: Devils punch bowl / spruce railroad trail
Marymere falls
Hurricane ridge, hurricane hill
Dinner: barhop brewery
Return to air bnb
June 15 Wednesday - Olympic National Park
Breakfast at air bnb, Check out of air bnb
travel to west coast → Rialto Beach (hole in the wall) for low tide 9 am
First beach second third drive by
Travel to neah bay from rialto
Cape flattery trail, get $20.00 pass at Makah museum, Check out the makah museum
Drive from neah bay to kalaloch
Check in at kalaloch lodge for 1 night
Dinner creekside at Kalaloch
Ruby Beach for sunset and low tide (10 minutes from Kalaloch lodge)
June 16 Thursday - Olympic National Park
Breakfast at cabin
Check out kalaloch lodge
Travel to Hoh rainforest from kalaloch- hall of mosses and spruce nature trail
Big cedar tree, Tree of life by the kalaloch beach / campground
Travel towards quinault:
Quinalt rainforest loop, trail
Quinalt big Sitka tree
Merriman falls (roadside stop)
Check in quinault lodge
Dinner dinos pizza and grill
Hikes/places we had on the list but didn't have time to do: Madison Falls, Mt. Storm King. Second Beach, Kalaloch 4th Beach,Dungeness Spit, Salt Creek Recreation Area
If you didn't read about our North Cascades National Park visit click here ! Click here for our Mt. Rainier post. Click here for our Columbia River Gorge/Mt. St Helen's post! Click here for the Deception Pass/Whale watch post!
Cheers!
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