We started our journey to the Olympic Peninsula by taking our motorhome onto a ferry, which was a first for us. It was the shortest route, saving us hours of frustrating traffic getting around Seattle and it was fun and remarkably easy to boot. Bill stayed with the RV and had a birds-eye view of the trip across the water.
I am not sure what exactly I was expecting in Olympic National Park but not a rain forest. ONP is a mix of lakes, old growth forests, rocky beaches, and waterfalls. It really exceeded our expectations. The section of the Hoh Rain Forest was pretty spectacular with enormous trees primarily composed of spruce, fir, cedar and hemlock. As you can see from the pictures, the massive trees provide cover for the lush, mossy ferns covering the forest floor. The hikes through the forest were amazing. It was so very quiet, with only the sounds of your footsteps and the occasional fellow hikers. This wild environment is extraordinarily peaceful and mind boggling with trees up to 1,000 years old. There were quite a few streams and lovely waterfalls scattered among our chosen hikes.
The beach hikes led us through the forest right to the edge of the water with rocky outcroppings, eerie looking sea stacks, and many fallen trees to navigate on the beach itself. We were careful not to get caught at high tide which could trap you with a difficult path to get back to the trail.
This park is enormous at over 1400 square miles with no direct route from one side to the other. US 101 provides the main access with other spur roads leading into the park. Most drives to our trailheads involved a bit of a time commitment. The trip to the Hoh rainforest was about 2 hours from campground to visitor center. A few of our drives and hikes took us around lakes that are so picturesque with deep blue water, often mixed with brilliant turquoise hues closer to the shorelines. The colors are extraordinary, creating stunning vistas.
No trip to the Northwest coast would be complete without sampling their locally caught Dungeness crab! It was another first for all of us. They are huge and cooked in a similar manner to live lobster. The taste is scrumptious much like King Crab. We shared a dinner of crab with melted butter at our campsite with Susie and Dean, and of course it was accompanied by a delicious white wine. There was not a scrap left.
We loved this wilderness of ancient trees, waterfalls and streams, beautiful lakes and beaches and were so grateful that we were able to spend a week here to explore this captivating park.
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Looks like you guys had an awful lot of fun there among the massive timbers.
Go Bills!!! 2022-2023