Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Left: Pacific coast along Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Park, Washington.
Right: Map showing the location of Olympic National Park

Credit: Olympic National Park by Jasperdo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, R.B. Alley © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 

Take a Tour of Olympic National Park

The Olympic Peninsula juts out into the Pacific Ocean, separated from Seattle by Puget Sound. Moisture-laden winds off the Pacific dump more rain and snow on the Olympic than anywhere else in the lower-48 United States. Great old-growth forest trees—Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, etc.—tower up to 300 feet (almost 100 m) above the forest floor, where butterflies flit past crystalline streams and cascading waterfalls. Along the coast, sea lions bask on offshore stacks, while urchins and starfish populate tidal pools. On the “high peaks,” numerous glaciers form and flow downhill. More snow accumulates than melts on the peaks. On most mountains, you have to go much higher to find summertime snow, but the huge winter snowfall on the Olympic allows the peaks to be snow-clad year-round despite rising less than 8000 feet (about 2500 m) above sea level. (Those glaciers are shrinking because of human-caused climate warming, as we will discuss later in the semester.) 

Olympic National Park is a bit unusual in that it was established as much for biological reasons as for geological—to protect the Roosevelt elk that live on the peninsula. (The elk, named after Theodore Roosevelt, were critical in obtaining national monument status, which was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Later, the upgrade to national park status was signed by President F.D. Roosevelt. The Roosevelt elk is the largest of the elk subspecies in the country. Some consideration was given to naming the park Elk National Park before Olympic was chosen.) 

The geologic story of the Olympic is somewhat shorter and less dramatic than for most of the national parks. The rocks of the Olympic are almost all young—less than 40 million years. (Again, please bear with us—we will justify these numbers before the course ends!) Before that, the coastline must have been farther to the east, perhaps in North Cascades National Park, and before that even farther east.