A first-timer's guide to Olympic National Park, Washington

17.04.2024 - 16:51 / lonelyplanet.com

Green is the overwhelming color on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

From dazzling emerald to muted pine, you’ll detect a hundred different shades of it in the wet, mossy confines of the Lower 48’s most north-westerly national park where 1000-year-old trees guard the finest tract of old growth rainforest in the US. The Olympics is also home to a small ski station, the majestic Roosevelt elk, regular deluges of precipitation and a dark, eerie sylvian environment that has inspired a mini library of vampire books.

Playing a noble supporting act are a muddle of heavily glaciated mountains, a trio of handsome “parkitecture” lodges and a couple of rustic hot springs. In a separate strip of land added in 1953, the Olympics also includes the wildest slice of US coastline outside Alaska.

Come here if you like rock-hopping on stormy beaches, paddling across windy lakes and hiking beneath drippy trees with just bears and rutting elk for company.

Welcome to one of the wettest places in the US! Rain, and its avoidance, is a primary consideration for most visitors. The Hoh Rainforest gets nearly 130in of precipitation a year. Summer, between May and September, is the driest time with July logging an average of only nine rainy days. This is also when most of the park’s facilities are open, from campgrounds to ranger-led hikes.

The winter season usually runs from late-November to late-March with snow activities centered around the small ski station at Hurricane Ridge.

If you hate crowds, January is the quietest (and wettest) month, while August (with over half a million visitors) is the busiest. Prices don’t fluctuate much in the park itself. In the surrounding communities, winter and the spring/fall shoulder seasons work out slightly cheaper.

Planning a trip to Washington State? Here's our seasonal guide

You could easily spend four or five days working your way around Hwy 101, the Olympics’ unofficial ring-road with overnight stops in Port Angeles, Lake Crescent, Forks and Lake Quinault. If you’re planning on penetrating the park’s extensive backcountry on longer hikes along the coast or in the roadless interior, bank on putting aside a week – or even two.

Getting to the park is relatively easy due to its proximity to Seattle. It’s just over 2 hours by car from the “Emerald City” to the eastern park entrance at Staircase and 2.5 hours to Port Angeles in the north. Seatac, 15 miles south of downtown Seattle, is the nearest airport.

It’s relatively easy to travel to Port Angeles direct from Victoria on Vancouver Island in Canada. The Black Ball car ferry runs four times a day in either direction in the summer (and twice in the winter). The journey time is 1.5 hours.

The park is encircled by well-maintained Hwy 101 (a state