Summer, 1997
I spent the summer of 1997 working in Olympic National Park and traveling on the Olympic Peninsula, and since then I’ve done a number of other trips out there. I also spent 3 summers living in the San Juan Islands to the east in Puget Sound, so I’ve become very familiar with the area. I went out there when I was scouting new program locations for the National Wildlife Federation, and decided on the Olympic Park Institute, which is one of the most picturesque locations I’ve ever visited.
Olympic National Park is definitely in my top three favorite US parks. The diversity of settings on the peninsula is high, including the Hoh River Valley/Hoh Rain Forest, the glaciers of Mount Olympus, enormous old growth trees (some over 300 feet tall), rocky coasts/ocean and beach to beach hikes, Dungeness Spit, an arid region to the east due to the rain shadow. The forests and mountains of the Olympic Peninsula are some of the most remote and rugged areas left in the lower 48, and still have significant old growth forest left.
The 1990s were the peak of the spotted owl conservation efforts and the resulting conflicts. Since the main industry on the Olympic Peninsula is logging and paper production, it was a typical jobs vs. conservation issue, with the usual angry rhetoric, including anti-owl bumper stickers, T-shirts, and signs. Also at that time, logging practices were heavy on the clear cutting (as opposed to more recent selective cutting practices). It was extremely obvious when hiking along a trail Olympic National Park when the trail crossed the boundary between the protected park and the surrounding national forest. Old growth forest would abruptly end at the border, and then you have sun-baked clear cut areas.
I did a number of trips up through the Hoh Rain Forest, including accessing climbs of Mount Olympus. Some of the other trips were a part of staff training or student trips involving the National Wildlife Federation and Olympic Park Institute programs.
One trip re-traced the Seattle Press Expedition traverse, which gets its name from an expedition in the winter of 1889-1890, sponsored by the Seattle Press, to explore the interior of the park, and make a complete traverse of the peninsula from south to north. The terrain is extremely rugged, and at that time, there were no trails (today, there’s a good trail, making the trip significantly easier). I’m not sure why they started in December, during one of the harshest winters in history, but that’s what they did. The expedition consisted of 6 men and 4 dogs (pictured below), 2 mules, 1500 lbs. of supplies, and a hand-built boat to haul those supplies, which they abandoned after the first 12 days. They went up the Elwha Valley and down the Quinault Valley, covering the 50 mile distance in about 6 months, from December to May (including the time for additional exploring).
But the absolute highlight, and one of my all-time favorite backcountry trips is the Bailey Range Traverse. It is almost entirely off-trail, and has it all: glaciers and snowfields, thick temperate rainforest, alpine lakes, narrow ridges and rock scrambling, mountain climbing, ice caves, and plenty of bears. It’s one of the best treks/traverses I’ve ever done. Beautiful and isolated–we didn’t see anyone when not on a trail, and even on trails we saw very few people.