Olympic National Park

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. —John Muir

Every national park is an awe-inspiring experience. There is none better than the other. Crater lake, Mt.Rainier, Cascade mountains, Glacier national park,.. each of them carves out a niche of itself. And another one of its kind is the Olympic national park. With 3 different ecosystems co-existing beautifully, it's a wonderland. You have the snow capped mountains, the thick rainforests ornate with lakes and waterfalls, and the sparkling beaches. 

We visited the Olympic on 26th April, 2014, on a 1-day trip. Olympic is not really a place fit for a 1-day trip because the drive along the entire loop itself takes around 6-7hours. But we didn't want to take all the pains of finding accommodation and carrying a backpack. So we chose to cover only as much as was doable. 

While going from Seattle, the easiest way is to take a ferry to Port Angeles. In an effort to bypass the ferry, we took a longer route via Olympia. 

Seattle - Olympia - Port Angeles- Olympic - Tacoma - Seattle

So, when you travel via Olympia, you take US 101, which has a spectacular coastal route. Although it's a longer and a not-so-efficient route, you would end up loving not just the destination, but also the journey.

On the way to Port Angeles are two old towns - Port Townsend and Sequim. Sequim has a Lavendar festival in July. Since it was April, and we were short of time, and Sequim had nothing more to offer, we didn't stop there.

Port Townsend is a historic town with old Victorian style buildings and a clock tower. 

When you travel from Seattle, whichever way you take, you need to bow to Port Angeles to enter Olympic national park. 

Since it was a one day trip, we had only a couple of places in the park planned out. No hikes, no time-consuming drives. A national park is incomplete without a hike ; so pardon me for the abstract description. We'll visit the place again extensively some day, and I will update this post then!

Hurricane Ridge

(Remember, it was April end, and the mountains were still snow capped)

It's the Canadian coast that you see here.

Lake Crescent

Marymere Falls trail

**We took pics of everything except the falls without our hideous mug spoiling the pic. So i'm guilty of copyright violation for this pic!

Back to Lake Crescent

Port Angeles

(to be contd.. some day..)

Have a great trip!

Regards,
Gayathri