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| Ready to explore. The first stop is always the sign, followed usually by checking out the visitor's center. The visitors center for Olympic National Park is in Port Angeles. There was a second visitors center at the top of Hurricane Ridge, unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire on May 7, 2023. |
Washington's Olympic Peninsula is approximately 2.3 million acres in size. Over 900,000 of those acres are within Olympic National Park. The park, which was established in 1938, typically receives close to 3.8 million visitors annually. The parks visitor center is in Port Angeles, which was just a short twenty-five-minute drive from where we were staying in Sequim.
Unless you're into extreme back country hiking (we're not), there are basically two ways to experience Olympic National Park. There is the "perimeter road" which is Highway 101, or by going up the seventeen-mile Hurricane Ridge Road to the Hurricane Ridge Overlook. From the overlook you can get great views of the Olympic Mountains as well as the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It would be possible to do the majority of the "perimeter road" and Hurricane Ridge Road in one day, but it would be a very full day. Since we were so close to the park, we decided to break it up into two separate visits.
On our first visit we took the "perimeter road" from the gateway in Port Angeles to Rialto Beach (approximately 68 miles). There were numerous stops for short hikes, sightseeing, a picnic and even visiting the small town of Forks, where some scenes from the movie Twilight were filmed. We started the day fairly early and took our time in the park. On the way back to Sequim, and based on a recommendation from a nice couple from Kentucky, we enjoyed a pizza and frosty beverage at Barhop Brewing and Artisan Pizza. We didn't arrive back at our rental home until after sunset. Those McNeely's are party animals!
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| Near Lake Crescent |
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| The Tuckers doing what the Tuckers do best. Enjoying the scenery along the shores of Lake Crescent. |
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| A "Driftwood Window" view of Rialto Beach |
Barhop Brewing and Artisan Pizza-Port Angeles
Our second visit to Olympic National Park took us up the seventeen-mile Hurricane Ridge Road to the Hurricane Ridge Overlook. The views were great and there were several trail options from the overlook. It was an unusually hot day, so we opted for the shorter, flat hike, which in reality is probably what we would have opted for even if the weather conditions had been ideal. We even took our camp chairs with us on the hike and set up under some shade trees, enjoying the views and greeting other hikers as they passed by.
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| Hurricane Ridge........ |
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| and our new friend. |
Olympic National Park is a little off the beaten path to get to, but as we learned from our two visits, it was well worth the effort to visit.........twice!
