Olympic National Park

On Sunday we took a day trip to Olympic National Park in the Northeast corner of Washington state.

It’s a large park, nearly a million acres, mostly mountainous. We went in the Staircase entrance in the Southwest corner of the park, then skirted the park up highway 101, and went in again at the Hurricane Ridge entrance.

Here’s the Staircase ranger station:

Staircase info sign:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase:

An animated GIF of the river:

A little further downstream, next to the Staircase campground:

The water was so amazingly clear:

Some fallen trees:

An interesting structure:

Further downstream:

Lake Cushman:

The portion of the road to Staircase outside the park was a somewhat rough dirt road; an opportunity to engage 4WD mode on our truck:

At the visitor center in Hoodsport, an interesting relief map:

We had lunch at El Puerto De Angeles in Hoodsport, with a waterfront view from our table of a couple of seals relaxing on a dock:

A GIF of the seals:

I experimented with the iPhone 13 Pro Max macro camera on my margarita:

A tasty margarita and burrito:

After lunch, we headed north up highway 101, and saw a sign for a viewpoint, so headed up a road… that turned out much longer than expected. Apparently the viewpoint was at the top of a mountain. Looking at the map, we still had a long way to go, so decided to turn around, since it was socked in with clouds anyway. The road was quite interesting, with a sea of clouds next to sheer drop-offs:

Our truck wasn’t quite so clean after those dirt roads:

On reaching Port Angeles, we headed into the park again at the Hurricane Ridge entrance… which was using a temporary entrance station in a cargo container while the permanent ones were being renovated:

At a viewpoint on the road to Hurricane Ridge, an info sign:

The view:

The first of three tunnels as we entered the cloud layer:

We drove through the thick fog-like cloud layer for several miles, wondering if the top would be socked in… but no, we saw the sun again as we neared the top:

The Hurricane Ridge visitor center:

Awesome views from above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge:

A selfie:

An info sign on the North side of the ridge:

The view on that side:

Unicorn Peak looked like a whale breaching:

Heading downhill into the clouds:

We went for a stroll on the dock at Port Angeles:

For dinner, Jenn had fish and chips, and I had a burger and fries at Smugglers Landing Restaurant on the wharf:

Followed by “New Zealand-style” Welly’s fruit ice cream from a trailer outside:

The sun had set at that point, so we headed back to Mom’s place in the dark. About 12 hours round-trip, and we only saw a tiny fraction of the park. But it was a great day-trip, a sample of the kind of thing we want to do more of in our new RV lifestyle.