Trip Planner: Olympic National Park

Sol Duc Falls is a short hike from the nearby resort and its soaking pools.

Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau

trip planner

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.

Day 1

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 slopes. For non-skiers or in the off-season, there’s always snow play (yes, year-round!). Just trying to stand up in the famous winds that gave the ridge its name can be entertaining. In warmer months, skip the ridge in favor of getting out on Lake Crescent—either on one of the boat tours or by renting a kayak and paddling yourself around.

Hurricane Ridge is one of three ski resorts in a national park.

Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau

Finish off your day by pulling into the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. There’s no cell service, no internet, and the cabins are spare: disconnect from the world and sink into the sulfur-scented pools, which will leave your skin baby-soft. Young deer amble between the buildings and angel wing mushrooms sprout from the trees, quickly transporting guests into a world far from buzzing cell phones and nagging duties.

Sol Duc Hot Springs has several pools.

Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau

That remoteness means dining options are slim (there are no options), but the restaurant on site, The Springs, does an impressive job considering, bringing in local ingredients to bolster crowdpleasing standards—local salmon and steak share the menu with burgers and salads.

Sol Duc closes for the winter, re-opening in mid-March, so if you’re visiting while it’s closed, head a little farther to the coast, where the Lost Resort at Ozette—the westernmost outpost in the continental United States—lets you pay the weather for your cabin. During the offseason, whatever the temperature is in Fahrenheit when you arrive at the resort, that’s how much it costs.

Day 2

WATERFALLS • TIDEPOOLS • TACOS

Get up early at your cabin in Sol Duc—the soaking pools are open at 8 a.m. only for people staying there, which gives you a quiet session watching the sun gleam over the horizon and filter through the steam as you soak. Follow that with a quick hike out to the waterfalls, about a mile and a half round trip, before heading west for a morning at Rialto Beach. There, seastacks shoot up from the chilly waters and tidepools gather along the smooth-stoned beach, making for spectacular scenery on both a grand and minute scale. Continue your journey by turning south toward the town of Forks, where the Twilightfueled tourist boom of the late 2000s has never really faded. Ignore the hullabaloo and head straight for Taqueria Santa Ana, where the homemade tortillas, salsa bar and friendly staff seem to be one of the only businesses immune to the vampire invasion.

Turn inland at the Hoh Rainforest entrance to learn what fruits in a place that gets more than a dozen feet of rain each year. A series of hikes leave from the visitor center, ranging from a short amble through the woods guided by informative signs to longer day or overnight hikes. Any of them will allow you to walk among the gnarled knots of trees felled by the excessive damp of the area, and resting gently on the forest floor, where they sport new growth that look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Finish off your day with a final drive down to Lake Quinault Lodge, where you can get a taste of a bit more luxury in the upscale lodgings with stunning views over the lake. The lodge, which dates back nearly a century, feels more quintessentially “national park” than anywhere else nearby—the fireplace roars in the grand lobby, guests relax in Adirondack chairs as their children run about on the sprawling lawn. But things are a bit fancier here—there are flat-screen televisions, mostly functional wi-fi and a warm pool in the basement, along with a sauna. It’s the kind of place you want to cozy up in the winter and base yourself for long hikes in the summer— just enough creature comfort to wind you back up for a day enjoying the great outdoors.

Day 3

RAINFORESTS • INSTAGRAM • OYSTERS

The best way to enjoy that day outdoors from Lake Quinault is the rainforest tour, which runs year-round daily starting at 9:30 a.m. The fourhour guided van tour takes you through the history of the area, from the local native peoples to historic homesteads. It introduces you to the plant life and waterfalls of the region on a series of short walks, and depending on the time of year, provides an introduction to a few of the animals of the region and takes you to all the most Instagrammable places around.

Hike through the Hoh Rainforest.

Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau

Finish your drive around the park by pointing yourself toward a different view of the animal life of the peninsula: the oyster bar at the Hama Hama Oyster Saloon in Lilliwaup. End your trip just outside the park at this shellfish farm’s rustic outdoor eating space, watching storms roll in over the tide flats with a pint of beer and a pile of oysters, clams, salmon chowder, crab cakes and more.

80 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE FEBRUARY | MARCH 2019

Rialto Beach has seastacks and a smooth beach.

Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, WASHINGTON

EAT

Butcher and Baker www.butcherandbakerprovisions.com

Taqueria Santa Ana www.bit.ly/2CTqRIO

Springs Restaurant at Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort www.olympicnationalparks.com/ lodging/dining/sol-duc-hot-springsresort

Hama Hama Oyster Saloon www.hamahamaoysters.com/pages/ oyster-saloon

STAY

Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort www.nationalparkreservations.com/ lodge/olympic-sol-duc-hot-springsresort

Lake Quinault Lodge www.olympicnationalparks.com/ lodging/lake-quinault-lodge

Lost Resort at Lake Ozette www.lostresort.net

PLAY

Olympic National Park www.nps.gov/olym

Boat Tours of Lake Crescent www.olympicnationalparks.com/ things-to-do/boat-tours-of-lakecrescent

Sol Duc Hot Springs www.olympicnationalparks.com/ things-to-do/mineral-hot-springspool-at-sol-duc-hot-springs-resort

Rainforest Tours of Lake Quinault www.olympicnationalparks.com/ things-to-do/tours-of-lake-quinaultrainforest

Skiing at Hurricane Ridge www.olympicnationalparks.com/ things-to-do/skiing-at-hurricane-ridge