Olympic National Park

There are multiple national parks within 4 to 6 hrs of Portland Oregon, but one of the best national parks I have visited is Olympic National Park. We can see Rain forest's, Mountains with glaciers, beaches on the Pacific Ocean, Wildlife, Multiple Rivers, Lakes, and Waterfalls.

There are two main lakes in the park with lodges to stay overnight. We visited the park multiple times and had stayed at Crescent lake lodge before. We loved the place, the lodge is next to the lake and some cottages have direct lake views. So we decided to stay again in Cresent lake lodge. We have to book early to get the rooms in the lodges or resorts inside the national park, or else we can book the hotels outside of the park. Port Angeles is the nearest city to the park.

There are different routes to reach the park, one route will take you to US -101 next to the ocean. On one of our visits, we used this route while return home . During this visit, we went to see Quinault lake, Ruby beach, Lake crescent, Hurricane Ridge, Sol Duc Falls, and finally Hoh Rain forest.

We started late evening from home (Hillsboro, Oregon) and reached Olympia (Washington state capital), stayed in a hotel for the night. The next day morning, we had coffee and bagel in Schwartz cafe, both bagel and coffee were good.

We continued the journey and reached Quinault lake. We went for a small walk to see the world's largest Sitka spruce tree and watched the clouds cover the mountains near the lake, the lake was beautiful. There are a lot of hikes to see the rainforest.  

We drove a little bit further down the road and stopped for lunch near the river bend. Our next stop was Ruby beach, this beach is on the Pacific ocean. When we reached the beach, it was drizzling but we went to the beach and stayed there for some time, taking a couple of photos. There are warning signs to be aware of the cougar sighting there.

From Ruby beach, we went directly to Cresent Lake where we are going to stay for the next 2 days. We love this place so we booked in advance for an independent cottage, even though it is costly but it's worth it. The lodge has a restaurant so we can dine in or take out. During the pandemic, it was only take-out.

The next day, we went to visit Hurricane Ridge, it was freezing cold, but we were able to locate the glacier over the mountains. We took a couple of photos and went back to the hotel.  During the night, we went again to Hurricane Ridge to take stars and milky way photos.

We got up early in the morning and went for walk on the path around the lake, there was a lot of fog/mist over the lake made the lake more beautiful. After we had breakfast in the restaurant, we bid our farewell to the lake and continued our journey to the Hoh Rain forest. Also, there is a waterfall near Cresent Lake, a 1-mile hike (mostly walk).

I missed visiting the Hoh rain forest on my previous visit, so this time, we decided to go to the place. When we entered the place, it was different from other parts of the park. We parked the car and went for a small hike around the creek, it had moss and huge trees.  When we came back to the visitor center, we met a ranger and he was talking about the place, it had only one Mom Bear with cubs, people sighted them a few times during the hikes.

We stopped on the banks of Sol Duc River to have food, as we had visited Sol Duc falls on the previous visit we didn't go again but I have posted some of the old photos here.

We returned back that evening with many many good memories to cherish.