trip planner
Sol Duc Falls is a short hike from the nearby resort and its soaking pools.
Stalking the Perimeter Find your piece of Olympic National Park written by Naomi Tomky
COVERING NEARLY 1,500 square miles of the Olympic Peninsula, with terrain ranging from craggy coastlines and sandy beaches to dense, lush rainforest and skyscraping mountains, the Olympic National Park looms large over Washington. Penetrated by few roads and many hiking trails, mapping a trip around the park—and with no roads actually through it, you are truly going around the park—can be challenging. Visitors can trace their way along the perimeter of the park, popping in for a boat tour here and a beach walk there. A full circle of the park over the course of three days provides opportunities to see every aspect of the Washington’s wettest and wildest peninsula. From selfguided nature walks to hosted rainforest tours, clamdigging beaches to frigid mountain tops, the park offers a world of options—it’s just a matter of choosing a route and planning your stops.
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Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau
CHARCUTERIE • SKI SLOPES • HOT SPRINGS If you’re coming over on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry, start your trip by popping into Butcher and Baker Provisions in Port Gamble to load up on supplies. Great food is not easy to find in the park, and you don’t want to have to spend time driving around in search of something to eat when you could have squirrelled away some of the store’s artisanal charcuterie, pickles and a loaf of bread. Load up on fancy snacks before making your way around the top of the park. From there, head to the top of Hurricane Ridge. In winter, it’s one of only three ski resorts operated within a national park—it gets more than 400 inches of snow each year and has plenty of gentle, beginner-friendly
