We recently visited the Olympics. No, we were not in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, but discovered another “Olympics” in northwestern Washington State. Our travels brought us to Olympic National Park, a vast wilderness of almost a million acres. It hosts so much natural beauty and diverse ecosystems; it was named both a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations.
Olympic National Park is a special place. It’s a place where snow covered mountains with glaciers reach to the sky. A place where lush, temperate rainforests receive more than 150 inches of rain each year, and colossal trees are covered with other plants to form a “jungle-like” setting. Around every corner, wild rivers and cold, clear streams hold salmon, steelhead and trout, and cascading waterfalls waiting to be explored. The park also hosts 70 miles of unspoiled, rugged Pacific coastline with big sea stacks, tide pools and windswept beaches. Looking for critters? Olympic NP has a bunch of them from mountains to ocean, including Roosevelt Elk, Olympic Marmots, Black Bear, Mountain Lions, Black-tailed Deer, River Otters, Seals, Sea Lions, Whales and nearly 300 species of birds.
Perhaps the most unique ecosystems are the temperate rain forests. These forests, made up of large Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Douglas Fir, Bigleaf maple and other species, are covered with mosses, lichens, ferns and spike mosses. Storms coming off the Pacific dump huge amounts of rain on these western slope, low-level valleys. Temperatures rarely drop below freezing in the winter, or higher than the 80s in the summer. Nowhere else in the lower 48 states can you experience forests like these found in Olympic NP, and it’s called a rain forest for good reason!
During our 1.7-mile hike in the Hoh Rain Forest, it rained five different times – not continuously, but it would start to rain, then the sun came out, then rain again. As we trekked along the trail, stepping in puddle after puddle, the warm rain rolled down our cheeks as if we just stepped into a shower. These rainforests have been described many times as the “jungles of America.” I get it. As you walk through this abundant, green vegetation, with large moss-covered trees standing above you and vines hanging down near your head, you would almost think that monkeys should be swinging from limb to limb, howling their calls through the canopy! The coolest part of this diverse park is being able to stroll through a rainforest like this in the morning, then by afternoon, be hiking up a trail that takes you 6,000 feet up to a snow-covered mountain ridge!
I confess. I had no idea the Olympic Mountain Range of the Cascades was so big! We’ve had the opportunity to hike in the majestic Rockies, visited the massive Sierra Nevadas in California and wandered many times along the ridges of the Appalachians, but the Olympic Mountains are unique in that several 7,000 foot peaks receive more than 30 feet of snow annually, with the Pacific Ocean only 33 miles away! In the late afternoon one day, we reached the peak of a long hike to a place called Hurricane Hill. It was one of the most awesome, 360 degree views I’ve ever seen. We gazed out to the east and saw mountains in the distance as far as we could see. When we turned to look over our back shoulder, there was the Strait of Juan De Fuca and the Pacific Ocean stretching to the north and west, with Canada in the distance. It was like looking at a dazzling series of post cards. All four of us simply described what we were looking at, as “Wow!” The bonus at the top was seeing a big, beautiful Black-tailed buck in velvet grazing on the alpine meadow grasses, along with several Olympic Marmots (kind of like our Groundhogs here in PA), which communicate back and forth to each other by chirping out loud whistles.
We were tired, but completely content with what we just experienced in the 48 hours we spent in NW Washington. Who wouldn’t be when you discover Olympic Gold!
Rich Wood is Region Manager with the Montgomery County Division of Parks, Trails, and Historic Sites. He has a B.S. in Environmental Education/Interpretation from Penn State and enjoys all things outdoors.
