We had the beautiful opportunity to visit the Northwestern part of Olympic National Park at Sol Duc Hot Springs and the Hoh Rainforest. Unlike most National Parks with a main central hubbub of activity, Olympic National Park has about eight entrances from which there are many long trails to hike between the different entrance trailheads.
Though I haven’t seen the rest, the northwest section gave me strong thoughts of moving out there. Merely driving to our destinations was an unbelievable experience of beautiful scenery. Everywhere you look, it is overflowing with greenery and life.
After we pulled into the Sol Duc Hot Springs entrance, down the road was a viewpoint of a creek where salmon were swimming upstream. In this spot was a fall, so many salmon were all swimming in place upstream, waiting their turn to leap up the falls.
We stayed in the RV section of Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort, though I will recommend the tent campsites much more. The RV area was basically a large parking lot with electricity and water hookups (with no bathrooms), while the tent campsites were dispersed through the trees and forest.
A big draw of this campground is the short hike out to Sol Duc Falls. If able to do some more walking, a loop from the Sol Duc resort parking lot on the Lover’s Lane Trail to the falls and back through the campground was a stunning 6 mile hike seeing a second falls, lots of forest, creeks, a variety of flora with little to no incline, and mostly avoided the majority who park in the Sol Duc trailhead lot and make the short hike to the falls and back.
Images from this hike
Another trail that left from the same spot as the Lover’s trail went up the mountain to the small Mink Lake. This hike left something to be desired after the other loop hike. It is an incline nearly the whole time, but with no panoramic viewpoint, and the lake is really more of a mountainside pond. Maybe if I hadn’t of already done the other hike I would have appreciated the forest scenery more.
While at the campground we heard a lot of talk about the Hoh rainforest, so we decided to leave the park and head to the Mt. Rainier area by going West and then South around the park. This meant more drives, especially on the road going towards the entrance of the Hoh Rainforest off of Highway 101.
We were merely stopping, so we did the short trails offered, and still found it very worth the stop. The forest varied as it got closer to the river, with moss, clovers, and greenery adorning nearly all surfaces throughout. Moss-covered maples rippled in the breeze with large conifers rising from past fallen trees.
Many who travel here take the long hike by the river through the rainforest, but that wasn’t in our plans. I guess will have to return to Olympic National Park one day!
Read about other travels here, and to see my full national road trip itinerary click here!