Nature’s Champion Olympic National Park, National Geographic

Olympic National Park is one of our nation’s crown jewels. A biological reserve and protected wilderness in the Pacific Northwest, Olympic hosts three diverse eco-systems—ocean, rainforest, and mountains—within its 1,400 square miles.

The park protects the rocky cliffs, sand beaches, and tide pools along 73 miles of wild, uninterrupted Pacific coastline.

Temperate rain forests in the valleys of the Quinault, Queets, and Hoh Rivers receive twelve feet of rain each year, which supports Sitka spruce, western hemlock, vine-maples, ferns, and the thick mosses covering the forest floor.

The glacier-capped Olympic Mountains are some of the youngest on Earth. They thrust up from the sea only 35 million years ago, and although only 8,000 feet high, are still rising today. Montane (highland) forests give way to sub-alpine meadows, but most of the area’s endemic plants and animals are found in the high elevation ecosystems. Isolated for eons by ice or water, the peninsula is home to endemic species—eight plants and 15 animals—that are found nowhere else on Earth.

About 95% of the more than 900,000 acres of Olympic Park are wilderness. Established in 1938 to preserve some of Washington’s quickly disappearing primeval forests, today it is one of the largest remaining blocks of old growth forest and temperate rainforest in the lower 48 states.