Home»Photo Galleries»Pacific Northwest USA»Olympic Peninsula»Olympic Peninsula 2012

The Olympic Peninsula has an amazing variety of landscapes, climate zones, and ecosystems that include snow-covered mountain ranges with glaciated peaks, alpine lakes and meadows; hot springs, waterfalls, deep valleys and canyons with several roaring rivers; rain forests, old-growth forests, and shore woodlands; and driftwood-strewn beaches and rocky islets, arches, caves and buttresses that are stretched along the longest undeveloped coast in the contiguous United States. The park is surrounded by the waters of the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound. Although much of the park is wrapped in moisture during most of the year, July and August bring some beautiful sunny days, and the mountain meadows and ridges respond with an amazing display of wildflowers, while the winter storms along the coast give way to calm seas and marvelous sunsets. Within the park, there are hundreds of miles of day-use and backcountry trails, waiting for the avid hiker to explore. Olympic National Park is a World Heritage Site and a biosphere reserve.

We first visited the Olympics over twenty years ago, and while that trip served as a wonderful introduction to the beauty of the area, we’ve been eager to get back and walk more of the trails. Thanks to the urging of our friends Joyce and Nils, who have built a gorgeous home near one of the small port towns, we made it again to this special place. We took several inspiring hikes: along the Sol Duc river up to Deer Lake; from Obstruction Point along Lillian Ridge and down to Grand Valley; Klahhane Ridge Trail; Upper Big Quilcene River to Marmot Pass (where most of the wildflower photos were taken); Hurricane Ridge on the full moon; Cape Flattery at Neah Bay; Shi Shi Beach to Point of Arches; and the Ozette Triangle Loop Trail to Sand Point and Cape Alava (which includes Makah petroglyphs etched into the Wedding Rocks, a group of boulders along the shore).

At the moment I have “way too many” photos in the gallery, and in a few cases there are several versions of the same scene, but I’ll leave all of them up for a while before creating a smaller gallery in a few weeks. If you like particular photos, let me know so I can include them in the final version. Thanks for viewing!