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A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | Olympic National Park

Fresh off our overnight backpack out to the Olympic Coast we still had plenty of time in the day. The forecast was for clear-ish skies atop Hurricane Ridge so we left the low elevations of the coastal region and headed to the other end of the extremes found at Olympic National Park, the mountains. It was in the low 50’s when we arrived atop Hurricane Ridge, and just clear enough to offer a few glimpses of the impressive Olympic mountains between passing low cloud banks.

Fleeting views at Hurricane Ridge
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A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | Olympic Coast

After departing North Cascade National Park we headed toward Whidbey Island and hopped the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula. We swung through Port Angeles to pick up our backcountry permit at the Olympic National Park wilderness information center, and the next morning we hit the trail out to the Olympic Coast from Ozette. The “Ozette Triangle” makes for a nice overnight loop if you want to get a taste for the Olympic Coast. At just over 9 miles round trip it’s not too long, but far enough to leave a lot of the crowd behind and see a bit of wild coastline.

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A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | North Cascade National Park

After hiking in the North Cascades for two days without actually making it into the national park, we ventured further along highway 20 and spent our third day in the park. Besides highway 20 there are a few other access points to North Cascade National Park, but overall, even more so than most national parks, if you don’t get on the trail and take a hike or backpack trip you aren’t going to see very much here. We had pondered a backpack trip during our planning, but a couple weeks out from departure the available overnight permits were pretty few and far between. We could either backpack in as far as we could day hike (too short), or we could pack in 20 plus miles (too long). We opted for day hikes instead.

We headed to the Thunder Creek trail and up the drainage we went.

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