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We had just about a week to explore Olympic National Park. Technically, we had a lot less time than that since Monday through Thursday we could only venture out for a few hours in the evening after our day’s work was done. It truly was not enough time for us do everything on our list; regardless, we had a wonderful time.

I am most familiar with the southwestern side of the Park near Kalaloch and the Hoh Rainforest since I spent two summers working there many years ago. This visit we moved up to a small RV park at the northeastern end of Lake Crescent after spending a night at South Beach Campground. It turned out to be a great location for us as it afforded us access to many short side trips.

The Olympic Mountains have been called a gift from the sea because the rocks that make up the range were formed out in the ocean. The range not only has layers of sedimentary rocks—sandstones and shales that were laid down over a millennium at the bottom of the sea—but it also has basaltic rocks, formed by lava that extruded from underwater fractures in the oceanic crust. Roughly 35 million years ago, as the oceanic plate continued its slow dive under the continental plate of North America, the taller layers were scraped off the top of the oceanic crust. The rock layers were folded, fractured, and thrust up as they slammed against the continental plate—thus forming the Olympic Mountains.

Though the subduction of the oceanic crust led to the formation of volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains to the east, the Olympics are relatively free of volcanism. Two small spots on the west side, Sol Duc and Olympic Hot Springs, are the area’s only hints that hot magma lies beneath the surface. While I had previously visited the undeveloped Olympic Hot Springs, it was my first visit to the mineral waters of Sol Duc. We headed over there on one of the cooler evenings, after hiking to Sol Duc Falls. The hot springs setup was very European with three pools, each one slightly warmer than the next. We bee-lined for the medium temperature one (101˚ F) and liked it so much that we didn’t even try the others. The water had a faint sulfur odor but it was not overwhelming; it was very relaxing.

The Olympic Peninsula, and therefore the Park, owes as much of its uniqueness to glaciers as it does to the sea. Roughly 15,000 years ago as the Cordilleran Ice Sheet advanced southward, the Olympic Mountains forced the ice to split around them. As a result, two fingers of ice surrounded the range: one flowed west and the other flowed east. The Olympics were effectively isolated from the rest of the continent, which ultimately led to the evolution of many endemic species (like the Olympic Marmot, Olympic Chipmunk, Olympic Short-tailed Weasel, Olympic Mazama Pocket Gopher, to name a few).

The glaciers carved out many lakes as well as Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which created the peninsula. Lake Crescent was one of those glacially carved lakes. The large lake, so named because of its shape, is one of the deepest lakes in Washington at 624’. It is renowned for its amazing blue color which is the result of the lake’s low nitrogen content, which inhibits algal growth. We appreciated the lack of algae when we went swimming at East Beach on one of our exceptionally warm afternoons. There was none of the green slime that is so often found in other lakes.

The Olympic Peninsula was home to native peoples for thousands of years before the first Europeans sighted the shore from their boats. While there is limited evidence of occupation and use in the interior of the Olympic Mountains, the coastal lands and surrounding valleys have ample proof of the early residents. The best site yet uncovered is near Lake Ozette, where a mudslide in the 1600s covered and preserved part of a Makah village. Excavated in cooperation with the Makah tribe in the 1970s, the site yielded over 55,000 artifacts that not only corroborated Makah oral legends, but also provided insight into the tribe’s historical economy.

Though the Makah lived in small bands spread out along the coast, they all shared the same dependence on the bounty of the ocean. They primarily subsisted on the seals, fish, whales, and shellfish that they hunted and collected from coastal waterways. Appropriately, their name for themselves, Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx translates as “the people who live by the rocks and the seagulls.” Though they surely had contact with earlier seafaring explorers from Spain and Russia, one of the first mentions of the tribe is an account by British captain John Meares.

In 1788 Meares stopped off at a small island where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Pacific Ocean. There, he met Tatooche, the chief of a band of Makahs who used the island as a summer home for hunting whales and drying salmon. According to Meares’s journal, Tatooche was less than welcoming. Still, the chief must have made quite an impression on Meares since he named the island after him. Meares gave names to a few other places that trip, one of them was a prominent peak he saw in the distance. Thinking it a home worthy of gods, he named it Mount Olympus, from which the mountains, peninsula, and park all derive their names.

The Makah, and other native peoples in Washington, remained relatively undisturbed by white settlers until the 1850s. Dramatic change came in that decade: pioneers began flocking to the fertile valleys of the peninsula, the Makah signed the Treaty of Neah Bay, and the Cape Flattery Lighthouse was built on Tatoosh Island. Though the Makah’s treaty significantly reduced their territory, they retained land along the coast and their tribal rights to harvest seals and whales. The Makah reservation is in a gorgeous area where the Pacific Ocean meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Since Lance is a geography buff (and we knew it’d be amazing) we left the Park, drove out past Neah Bay, and hiked the trail to Cape Flattery, the northwestern-most point of the Lower 48. (Not far to the south, the peninsula also claims the westernmost spot in the Lower 48 at Cape Alava.)

From the top of the bluff we could see Tatoosh Island and the lighthouse, a few other small islands, and water—lots and lots of water. To our surprise it was exceedingly calm that evening, with only a slight breeze and few waves. From our perch we watched Harbor Seals resting, Stellar Sea Lions cavorting, and Pelagic Cormorants, Great Blue Herons, Tufted Puffins, Common Murres, Pigeon Guillemots, and Rhinoceros Auklets fishing. A sail boat slowly headed into the strait, a fishing boat returned to harbor, and far off in the distance a freighter headed towards Canada. It was so peaceful and calm that even the sun slid gently over the horizon with muted colors.

Earlier in the day we had traveled into the heart of the Olympic Mountains by driving up to Hurricane Ridge. The Park road was being widened and repaved so we had about an hour of construction delays each way, but it was still worth the trip. From Hurricane Ridge we had a great view of Mount Olympus and several of the peak’s glaciers. In shady spots along the ridge line there were still some small snow fields yet most of the sub alpine meadows were ablaze with flowers. There were bright Magenta Paintbrush, white Avalanche Lily, purple Broadleaf Lupine, and a score of other flowers. The sky was a bit hazy that day, but to the north we could see past the harbor of Port Angeles and into the strait that separates the U.S. from Canada.

Looking south and east we could see row after row of ragged peaks, not overwhelming in their height but in their jaggedness. The mountains were so challenging that few people ventured into them; the interior of the mountains wasn’t traversed until the 1890s. The leader of one expedition, Lieutenant Joseph P. O’Neil, petitioned the U.S. government to protect the land not so much on the basis of its rugged beauty but because he viewed the area as “absolutely unfit for any use, except perhaps as a national park where elk and deer can be saved.” Thankfully, President Theodore Roosevelt heeded his words and in 1909 Mount Olympus National Monument was established. Twenty nine years later, another President Roosevelt—this time FDR—upgraded the area’s status, increased the size, and renamed it Olympic National Park. Currently, the Park covers over 1,400 square miles, most of which is designated as wilderness.

Does it sound like an amazing place? Well, it is, but it is not paradise. Much of the land lining Hwy 101 on the peninsula has been clear cut, leaving behind ugly scars that testify to the monetary value of the trees. Not everyone was ecstatic about the creation of the Park and for years park staff fought illegal logging within the Park’s boundaries. In the nearby town of Sequim residents are fed up with the destruction caused by a herd of Roosevelt Elk. The very same elk the Park was created to protect!

Meanwhile outside the Park, the Makah nation is embroiled in controversy over its return to whaling after an 80 year hiatus. While their treaty protected the Makahs’ right to hunt whales, larger issues such as the threatened status of Gray Whales, international bans on whaling, and concerns about when and where to hunt have stalled official approval for the tribe to resume whaling. To further complicate matters, in September of 2007, five members of the Makah tribe went out in a motor boat and fired over twenty shots from high-powered rifles into a resident Gray Whale. The Coast Guard immediately confiscated the animal and arrested the men. It is an ugly story, and reactions have been understandably passionate.

Controversies aside, the Olympic Peninsula is an amazing place and we are lucky to have so much of it preserved in the Park.

Photos: View our photographs from Olympic National Park.

Dates: We stayed near Olympic National Park from 07/19/08 to 07/27/08.