Washington
Olympic National Park
Olympic National Park protects three environments that would each be a major park on their own: glacier-cut mountains, temperate rainforest and a wild Pacific coast. Human history binds them together through tribal homelands, logging and conservation battles, resort development and the Elwha dam-removal project. This guide uses eight stops to explain why Olympic is less a single landscape than an entire peninsula-scale ecological system.
Stories in Olympic National Park
- Hurricane Ridge — A Mountain Range Built From the Seafloor
- Lake Crescent — A Glacier Lake With Its Own Evolutionary Story
- The Former Elwha Dam Site — When a Century of Engineering Was Reversed
- Sol Duc Falls — The Forest Runs on Water
- Hoh Rain Forest — Temperate Rainforest, Not Tropical Jungle
- Rialto Beach — Where the Park Meets the Pacific’s Full Force
- Ozette — Archaeology on a Coast With Living Makah History
- Lake Quinault — The Rainforest as a Cultural Landscape