| 32nd | Top hot springs |
| 23rd | Top World Heritage Sites in the Americas |
| Olympic National Park | |
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IUCN Category II (National Park)
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| Location | Jefferson, Clallam, Mason, and Grays Harbor counties, Washington, USA |
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| Nearest city | Port Angeles |
| Coordinates | 47°58′10″N 123°29′54″W / 47.96944°N 123.49833°WCoordinates: 47°58′10″N 123°29′54″W / 47.96944°N 123.49833°W |
| Area | 922,561 acres (373,347 ha) |
| Established | June 29, 1938 |
| Visitors | 2,749,197 (in 2006) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Olympic National Park* | |
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| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
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| State Party |  United States
of America |
| Type | Natural |
| Criteria | vii, ix |
| Reference | 151 |
| Region** | Europe and North America |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 1981 (5th Session) |
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* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. ** Region as classified by UNESCO. |
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Olympic National Park is located in the U.S. state of Washington, in the Olympic Peninsula. The park can be divided into three basic regions: the Pacific coastline, the Olympic Mountains, and the temperate rainforest. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt originally created Olympic National Monument in 1909 and after Congress voted to authorize a redesignation to National Park status, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the legislation in 1938. In 1976, Olympic National Park became an International Biosphere Reserve, and in 1981 it was designated a World Heritage Site. In 1988, Congress designated 95 percent of the park as the Olympic Wilderness [1]. [2]
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The coastal portion of the park is a rugged, sandy beach along with a strip of adjacent forest. It is 73 miles (117 km) long but just a few miles wide, with native communities at the mouths of two rivers. The Hoh River has the Hoh people and at the town of La Push at the mouth of the Quileute River live the Quileute. [1]
The beach has unbroken stretches of wilderness ranging from 10 to 20 miles (16 km to 32 km). While some beaches are primarily sand, others are covered with heavy rock and very large boulders. Bushy overgrowth, slippery footing, tides and misty rain forest weather all hinder foot travel. (Times to hike should typically be doubled.) The coastal strip is more readily accessible than the interior of the Olympics; due to the difficult terrain, very few backpackers venture beyond casual day-hiking distances.
The most popular piece of the coastal strip is the 9-mile (14 km) Ozette Loop. The Park Service runs a registration and reservation program to control usage levels of this area. From the trailhead at Lake Ozette, a 3-mile (4.8 km) leg of the trail is a boardwalk-enhanced path through near primal coastal cedar swamp. Arriving at the ocean, it is a 3-mile walk supplemented by headland trails for high tides. This area has traditionally been favored by the Makah from Neah Bay. The third 3-mile leg is enabled by a boardwalk which has enhanced the loop's popularity.
There are thick groves of trees adjacent to the sand, which results in chunks of timber from fallen trees on the beach. The mostly unaltered Hoh River, toward the south end of the park, discharges large amounts of naturally eroded timber and other drift, which moves north, enriching the beaches. The removal of driftwood - logs, dead-heads, tops and root-wads from streams and beaches was a major domestication measure across North America. Even today driftwood deposits form a commanding presence, biologically as well as visually, giving a taste of the original condition of the beach viewable to some extent in early photos. Drift-material often comes from a considerable distance; the Columbia River formerly contributed huge amounts to the Northwest Pacific coasts.
The smaller coastal portion of the park is separated from the larger, inland portion. President Franklin D. Roosevelt originally had supported connecting them with a continuous strip of park land.
Within the center of Olympic National Park rise the Olympic Mountains whose sides and ridgelines are topped with massive, ancient glaciers. The mountains themselves are products of accretionary wedge uplifting related to the Juan De Fuca Plate subduction zone. The geologic composition is a curious mélange of basaltic and oceanic sedimentary rock. The western half of the range is dominated by the peak of Mount Olympus, which rises to 7,965 feet (2,428 m). Mount Olympus receives a large amount of snow, and consequently has the greatest glaciation of any non-volcanic peak in the contiguous United States outside of the North Cascades. It has several glaciers, the largest of which is the Hoh glacier, nearly five kilometers in length. Looking to the East, the range becomes much drier due to the rain shadow of the western mountains. Here, there are numerous high peaks and craggy ridges. The tallest summit of this area is Mount Deception, at 7,788 feet (2,374 m).
The western side of the park sports a temperate rain forest, including the Hoh Rain Forest and Quinault Rain Forest, the wettest area in the continental United States (the island of Kauai in the state of Hawaii gets more rain). Because this is a temperate rainforest, as opposed to a tropical one like the Amazon Rainforest in South America, it is dominated by dense coniferous timber, including Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Coast Douglas-fir and Western redcedar and mosses that coat the bark of these trees and even drip down from their branches in green, moist tendrils.
Because the park sits on an isolated peninsula, with a high mountain range dividing it from the land to the south, it developed many unique plant and animal species (like the Olympic Marmot) that can't be found anywhere else in the world. The southwestern coastline of the Olympic Peninsula is also the northernmost non-glaciated region on the Pacific coast of North America, with the result that - aided by the distance from peaks to the coast at the Last Glacial Maximum being about twice what it is today - it served as a refuge from which plants colonized glaciated regions to the north.
It also provides habitat for many species (like the Roosevelt elk) that are native only to the Pacific Northwest coast. Because of this importance, scientists have declared it to be a biological reserve, and study its unique species to better understand how plants and animals evolve.
The park contains an estimated 366,000 acres (1,480 km2) of old-growth forests.[2]
Prior to the influx of European settlers, Olympic's human population consisted of Native Americans, whose use of the peninsula was thought to have consisted mainly of fishing and hunting. However, recent reviews of the record, coupled with systematic archaeological surveys of the mountains (Olympic and other Northwest ranges) are pointing to much more extensive tribal use of especially the subalpine meadows than seemed formerly to be the case. Most if not all Pacific Northwest indigenous cultures were more or less severely adversely affected by European diseases (often decimated) and other factors, well before ethnographers, business operations and settlers arrived in the region, so what they saw and recorded was a much-reduced native culture-base. Large numbers of cultural sites are now identified in the Olympic mountains, and important artifacts have been found.
When settlers began to appear, extractive industry in the Pacific Northwest was on the rise, particularly in regards to the harvesting of timber, which began heavily in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Public dissent against logging began to take hold in the 1920s, when people got their first glimpses of the clear-cut hillsides. This period saw an explosion of people's interest in the outdoors; with the growing use of the automobile, people took to touring previously remote places like the Olympic Peninsula.
The formal record of a proposal for a new national park on the Olympic Peninsula begins with the expeditions of well-known figures Lieutenant Joseph O'Neil and Judge James Wickersham, during the 1890s. These notables met in the Olympic wilderness while exploring, and subsequently combined their political efforts to have the area placed within some protected status. Following unsuccessful efforts in the Washington State Legislature in the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt created Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909, primarily to protect the subalpine calving grounds and summer range of the Roosevelt elk herds native to the Olympics.
Public desire for preservation of some of the area grew until President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared ONP a national park in 1938. Even after ONP was declared a park, though, illegal logging continued in the park, and political battles continue to this day over the incredibly valuable timber contained within its boundaries. Logging continues on the Olympic Peninsula, but not within the park. A book detailing the history of the fight for ONP's timber is Olympic Battleground: The Power Politics of Timber Preservation by Carsten Lien.
There are several roads in the park, but none penetrate far into the interior. The park features a network of hiking trails, although the size and remoteness means that it will usually take more than a weekend to get to the high country in the interior. The sights of the rain forest, with plants run riot and dozens of hues of green, are well worth the possibility of rain sometime during the trip, although months of July, August and September frequently have long dry spells.
An unusual feature of ONP is the opportunity for backpacking along the beach. The length of the coastline in the park is sufficient for multi-day trips, with the entire day spent walking along the beach. Although idyllic compared to toiling up a mountainside (Seven Lakes Basin is a notable example), one must be aware of the tide; at the narrowest parts of the beaches, high tide washes up to the cliffs behind, blocking passage. There are also several promontories that must be struggled over, using a combination of muddy steep trail and fixed ropes.
During winter, the popular viewpoint known as Hurricane Ridge offers alpine and Nordic skiing opportunities. The Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club operates Hurricane Ridge Ski and Snowboard Area, a not for profit alpine ski area which offers ski lessons, rentals, and inexpensive lift tickets. The small alpine area is serviced by two rope tows and one poma lift. Backcountry skiers often make their way down to the main Hurricane Ridge Road in order to hitchhike their way back to the top. Rafting is available on both the Elwha and Hoh Rivers.
The Elwha Ecosystem Restoration Project is the second largest ecosystem restoration project in the history of the National Park Service after the Everglades. It will consist of removing the 210 feet (64 m) Glines Canyon Dam and draining its reservoir, Lake Mills and removing the 108 feet (33 m) Elwha Dam and its reservoir Lake Aldwell from the Elwha River. Upon removal, the park will revegetate the slopes and river bottoms to prevent erosion and speed up ecological recovery. The primary purpose of this project is to restore anadromous stocks of Pacific Salmon and Steelhead to the Elwha River, which have been denied access to the upper 65 miles (105 km) of river habitat for more than 95 years by these dams.
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Olympic National Park [1] is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Washington State.
Olympic National Monument was established in 1909 and up-graded to the status of national park in 1938. It was further designated as an International Biosphere Reserve in 1976, and evolved into a World Heritage Park in 1981. Currently, nearly 96% the Olympic National Park is incorporated into the Olympic Wilderness.
Enormous Sitka spruce and Douglas fir, hundreds of feet high, in the Hoh and Queets rain forest valleys on the west side of the park. Thick, furry epiphyte moss and dense, vibrant vegetation give a beautiful, almost "Tolkien-esqe" enviornment in these unique temperate rain forests, which receive fifteen feet of rain per year on average from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Overall, the Olympic Peninsula has a moderate marine climate with pleasant summers and mild, wet winters. The Olympic Mountains, part of North America's western coast range, rise suddenly from near sea level to ~8000 feet, intercepting Pacific moisture which is dumped as large amounts of rain. The climate grows wetter from east to west on the Olympic Peninsula. Sunny days are likeliest in July and August. Nearby Sequim is actually in the rain-shadow of the Olympics and is known for sunny days and minimal rain.
Summers tend to be fair and warm, with high temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees F. July, August and September are the driest months, with heavier precipitation during the rest of the year.
While winters are mild at lower elevation, with temperatures in the 30's and 40's, snowfall can be heavy in the mountains, with accumulations of up to 10 feet common.
You will want a car to explore Olympic National Park. Unlike many national parks, there are no roads through the park. In fact, the central part of the park is one of the last great roadless patches in the lower 48 states. There are a number of roads running from US 101 into the park: Hurricane Ridge, Elwha, Sol Doc, Hoh, and Quinault. The park also includes much of the Pacific coast along the peninsula which is accessible from US 101 at Klalaloch, La Push, Cape Alava and Neah Bay. The park is a big park, so think about your trip, and take driving times into account. You don't want to spend all your time on the road.
There are a number of ways of getting to Olympic National Park by car:
- from Seattle or Seatac - head south to Tacoma and cross the Tacoma Narrows to the peninsula - from Seattle downtown - take the Bainbridge Island or Bremerton ferry - from north of Seattle - take the Edmonds ferry to Kingston and continue west - from Anacortes or Whidbey Island - take the Keystone ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend and continue west - from Olympia - take US 101 north along the Hood Canal - from points south, following the coast - take US 101 north through Aberdeen and near Ocean Shores - from Vancouver or Victoria, BC - take the Coho ferry from Victoria
Most of the ferries are run by the Washington State Department of Transportation[2], but the Coho ferry [3] and the Victoria Express [4] are run privately.
Be warned that the ferries can be backed up for two or three hours, particularly in the summer when people are heading off or returning from their vacations on the Olympic Peninsula. If you can, avoid heading west on Friday afternoons and east on Sunday evenings. The ferries usually run roughly every 50 minutes and can offer a relaxing way to cross Puget Sound.
I-5, the main road from Seattle to Tacoma can be crowded during rush hour (6-9 AM and 4-7 PM). You can check traffic conditions, and for other travel problems, at the state DOT web site [5].
There are scheduled flights to Port Angeles, so you can approach by air. The views of the Olympics are often fantastic, and you can arrange to rent a car at the airport.
- from Boeing Field (BFI) near Seattle - take a scheduled Kenmore Air [6] flight to Fairchild Airport (CLM)
Another approach is to fly to Victoria, BC (YYJ), then take the Coho ferry or the Victoria Express to Port Angeles and rent a car there.
- from Victoria, BC - fly to Victoria, rent a car there, or take the ferry across the Strait of San Juan de Fuca and rent a car in the U.S.
By car is really the only way in or out. Most people visit either the park's beach section, which is accessible only on US-101 between Forks and Aberdeen, or Hurricane Ridge, which is accessed from a road out of Port Angeles.
Access points from the more remote east side are Staircase (turn west off 101 in Hoodsport) or Quilcene (closer to the Hood Canal Bridge).
The best way to see the park is to drive from Aberdeen on northbound US-101 and "do the loop", ending in Olympia, taking three or four days to visit the coastal section (Kalaloch Campground or Lodge are great places to stay), the rainforest (Hoh), Ozette (an easy three mile hike in, or do the easy nine mile loop, tides permitting), Hurricane Ridge, and Staircase.
Campground reservations are recommended in the summer.
It is an 18-mile hike from the Hoh Visitor Center to the summit of Mt. Olympus with its glacier fields (the last five miles being steepest). Trails are well-maintained but good hiking boots and gear are recommended.
The most dangerous thing around this area are drunk drivers. The roads are small, perpetually wet, winding, and not banked, so driving too fast can be incredibly dangerous.
The wildlife can also be somewhat hazardous, although with a bit of common sense, most danger can be avoided. This is bear country, so make noise if you are travelling in an area with limited visibility (most of this area has very poor visibility, due to the extreme amounts of vegetation.) Also, cougars do live in Olympic National park, and are much more aggressive and dangerous than bears. That being said, the number of incidents involving mountain lions is very small, so there isn't too much to worry about. Another animal that needs to be watched out for are the elk. Although elk are herd animals, and not aggressive like their moose cousins, they can be extremely dangerous if they feel threatened. Only an idiot would threaten a herd of 50 elk though, so if you are not an idiot, you will be safe from these animals. (And if you are an idiot, then you get to take part in one of the most ancient aspects of nature - natural selection.)
| This is a usable article. It has information about the park, for getting in, about a few attractions, and about accommodations in the park. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow! |
Category: Usable articles
   | Olympic National Park - NPS - Olympic National Park (U.S. National Park Service) |
| | The Evergreen Playground - Olympic Peninsula Community Museum - Online Exhibits - The Evergreen Playground |
| | Photos of Olympic National Park - Olympic National Park Pictures - US National Parks stock photos, fine art prints by QTL |
| | Photographic virtual tour of Olympic National Park. - Olympic Mountains National Park in 646 Images |
| | Daily time lapse movies of NPS web cam on Hurricane Ridge - Hurricane Ridge Webcam Time-Lapse |
| | Olympic National Park - Olympic National Park - National Parks Gallery |
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