Rainforest, ridgeline, and coast

Olympic National Park

JULY 17–19, 2026 · 31 PHOTOGRAPHS

We gave Olympic one long day and it felt like three parks in one. The morning was Hurricane Ridge in the cloud, marmots in the meadow and no view to speak of. By afternoon we were down at Lake Crescent and walking the big trees. We saved the Hoh for evening, when the moss goes quiet and the light drops through it, and finished out at Ruby Beach at low tide with the stacks offshore. We had come in from Sequim the day before and left past its totems the morning after.

Chickens in a garden bed with a boy watching.

The rental had chickens. That was the first thing the boys found.

19:35 · Sequim
A child beside a large cross-section of a tree trunk on display.

The visitor center had a slab cut from an old fir, the years marked off. We started here.

09:30 · Port Angeles
A family of five taking a selfie in fog.

All five of us, first stop of the day, up on the ridge in the fog.

10:25 · Hurricane Ridge
A chipmunk on rocky ground.

A chipmunk on the rocks, gone before the second shot.

10:31 · Hurricane Ridge
Foggy subalpine meadow with treetops fading into low cloud.

Up top the whole ridge sat in cloud. We waited a while and it never lifted.

10:32 · Hurricane Ridge
A small ranger station with a red door and a first-aid cross.
10:40 · Hurricane Ridge
A deer near a fallen log at the forest edge.

A deer at the treeline, close and in no hurry to move off.

10:47 · Hurricane Ridge
A marmot standing in a grassy meadow.

A marmot working the meadow, close enough that we stood still and let it pass.

10:56 · Hurricane Ridge
A marmot walking through meadow grass.
10:56 · Hurricane Ridge
A family posing in front of a waterfall in mossy forest.

The whole crew crowded in at the falls, a short walk off the road.

12:12 · Madison Falls
A man in front of a tall waterfall in green forest.

A short walk in, and the falls were right there at the end of it.

12:12 · Madison Falls
A teenage boy standing on rocks with forest behind.
12:36
A small figure on a rocky river bank below mountains.
12:38
A woman standing on a driftwood log by a rocky river.

Nora out on the driftwood by the river.

12:38
A deep blue-green lake ringed by forested mountains.

The water stayed that cold clear green the whole way across.

13:24 · Lake Crescent
People at the base of an enormous tree trunk.

The base was wider than we could reach across with our arms out.

13:44
A boy standing inside the hollow burned-out base of a huge tree.

The old cedar had burned hollow years back. Nathan fit inside with room to spare.

13:51
A family on a forest trail beneath a massive fallen log.

The trail ran straight under a fallen log this big. We walked under without ducking.

18:40 · Hoh Rain Forest
Tall moss-draped trees over a fern-covered forest floor.

Ferns to the knee and trees too tall to fit in the frame.

18:46 · Hoh Rain Forest
A moss-covered maple arching over a rainforest trail.

The mossed maples arch clear over the path. Everyone under them looks small.

18:51 · Hoh Rain Forest
A couple taking a selfie by a broad gravel river bed.

Nora and me down on the Hoh, wide open and nearly empty.

19:36 · Hoh River
A man taking a selfie by a braided river.
19:38 · Hoh River
A wide braided river valley below forested ridges in low light.

The valley opened up in the last light before we turned back.

19:39 · Hoh River
A man and a teenage boy at a beach with sea stacks offshore.

Out at the coast with Lucas as the tide went out.

21:21 · Ruby Beach
A foggy beach with tall trees reflected in wet sand.
21:21 · Ruby Beach
A woman with a backpack on a still, mirror-like beach.

Low tide left the sand like a mirror. Nora stopped to look back down the beach.

21:21 · Ruby Beach
A woman and three boys on a wooden trail through forest.

Nora and the boys on the way back up from the beach.

21:31 · Ruby Beach
A crested chicken with fluffy head feathers on dirt.

The next morning this bird came strutting over, feathers and all.

10:32 · Sequim
Carved totem poles and a cross beside a memorial plaza.

We stopped on the way out for the totems and the veterans memorial.

12:05 · Sequim
A veterans memorial with the U.S. and POW-MIA flags at half-mast.
12:09 · Sequim
A close view of a carved and painted totem pole.
12:12 · Sequim