Olympic

Olympic National Park sits on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. It covers four distinct zones: a rugged Pacific coastline, a temperate rainforest on the western side, high alpine areas, and the drier eastern forests. Within these zones, three separate ecosystems exist—subalpine forest and wildflower meadow, temperate forest, and the wild Pacific coast.

The park began as Mount Olympus National Monument, created by President Theodore Roosevelt on March 2, 1909. Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt redesignated it a national park on June 29, 1938. UNESCO named it an International Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and a World Heritage Site in 1981. In 1988, Congress set aside 95 percent of the park—1,370 square miles—as the Olympic Wilderness. This area was renamed the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness in 2017, honoring the former Washington governor and U.S. Senator who co-sponsored the 1988 wilderness bill. It remains Washington’s largest wilderness area. In 2024, the park hosted over 3.7 million visitors, ranking 25th among all U.S. national parks.

The park’s purpose, as stated in its foundation document, is to preserve a large wilderness containing the finest example of primeval forest—Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Douglas fir, and western red cedar—in the United States. It also aims to provide winter range and permanent protection for native Roosevelt elk and other wildlife, and to conserve the mountainous country with its glaciers and snowfields, surrounding forests, and a strip of Washington’s beautiful coast for recreational use.

The coastal section is a rugged, sandy beach 60 miles long but only a few miles wide, bordered by forest. Native communities live at the mouths of two rivers: the Hoh people along the Hoh River, and the Quileute at La Push on the Quileute River. Unbroken wilderness stretches 10 to 20 miles along the beach. Some beaches are sandy; others are covered with heavy rock and boulders. Bushy overgrowth, slippery footing, tides, and misty rainforest weather make travel difficult. The coast is more accessible than the interior, but few backpackers go beyond day-hiking distance. The most popular stretch is the 9-mile Ozette Loop, managed by the Park Service through a registration and reservation system. From Ozette Lake, a 3-mile boardwalk crosses a near-primal coastal cedar swamp. At the ocean, another 3-mile walk uses headland trails for high tides—an area traditionally favored by the Makah from Neah Bay. A third 3-mile boardwalk leg completes the loop. Another popular trail is the 0.7-mile path to Second Beach, offering views of offshore seastacks and wildlife. Thick tree groves line the sand, and fallen timber litters the beach. The largely unaltered Hoh River deposits naturally eroded timber and drift that moves north, enriching the beaches. Driftwood remains a dominant biological and visual feature, as seen in early photos. Drift material often travels long distances; the Columbia River once contributed huge amounts to the Northwest Pacific coast. The coastal portion is separated from the larger inland park; President Franklin D. Roosevelt originally wanted to connect them with a continuous strip of parkland.

The park is known for its unique turbidites—rocks or sediments that travel into the ocean as suspended particles, creating layered sedimentary deposits on the ocean floor. Over time, these compact and the cycle repeats. White calcite veins are common in these exposed turbidites. The park also features tectonic mélanges, large individual rocks sometimes as big as a house, which locals call “smell rocks” due to their strong petroleum odor.

At the center of the park rise the Olympic Mountains, topped with glaciers and perennial snowfields. The glacial landscape reflects the Pleistocene Epoch of the Quaternary. The mountains formed from accretionary wedge uplift related to the Juan de Fuca Plate subduction zone. The geology includes basaltic rocks, marine sedimentary rocks, and tectonic mélange units—such as Eocene basalts of the Crescent Formation, overlying clastic marine sediments, and locally mapped mélange like the Ozette mélange. The number of glaciers declined from 266 in 1982 to 184 by 2009 due to climate change. The western half of the range is dominated by Mount Olympus, which rises to 7,965 feet and receives heavy snow, supporting extensive glaciers.