Olympic National Park was designated in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt. Today, it covers 1,441 square miles of the Olympic Peninsula from the Pacific Ocean to the Olympic Mountains.
Since achieving national park status, Olympic has also been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve. Olympic National Park is one of the most unique protected areas in the Pacific Northwest!
Overview of Olympic National Park
Olympic has so many distinct ecosystems and areas that are so different from the others in this park, and we are excited to dive into what makes this park so special!
Join us as we discuss:
- Where the rocks at Olympic National Park come from
- The surprising number of glaciers you can find in this park
- The plants and animals in this area that you won’t find anywhere else
- The shocking amount of rain this park gets each year
- The last place in this park explored and mapped in the lower 48
We hope you love learning these fun facts as much as we do! Olympic is such an incredible park, and we hope you get the chance to explore it for yourself soon. If you need any help planning your trip, get your itinerary for an hour-by-hour schedule in Olympic!
Listen to the Full Podcast Episode:
Olympic National Park Fun Facts
1: The Olympic Mountains came from the same volcanic force as the Yellowstone Supervolcano
We know that tectonic plates move, but it’s hard to believe how much that movement can impact rock formations today! Typically, you wouldn’t think of Washington State when you hear about the Yellowstone Supervolcano. But that’s how much our tectonic plates have moved over the last 55 million years. Catch our “Yellowstone Fun Facts” episode to learn more about the unbelievable forces that created Yellowstone National Park.
The Yellowstone hotspot, another name for the supervolcano, used to be off the west coast of North America. As the Pacific and North American plates slammed into one another, this hotspot was put under pressure until it exploded with magma and volcanic rock in a massive show.
The eruption happened almost entirely under the ocean, so we don’t see ash or much evidence of the eruption all over the face of the Earth. The explosion created an island chain similar to the Hawaiian islands. This chain of islands prevented tectonic plate subduction for 15 million years until enough pressure caused the islands to be scraped off like an ice cream scoop and dropped onto what we now know as the Olympic Peninsula.
When you’re at Hurricane Hill or Hurricane Ridge, you can see the different layers of sedimentary rock running diagonally or vertically on mountain peaks. That’s the ice cream scoop effect from 15 million years ago!
2: Olympic National Park has 60 named glaciers
We were shocked to learn this Olympic National Park fun fact! Olympic is not that far off in glacier count to the colder and more mountainous North Cascades National Park, which has 300 glaciers. Considering this is a coastal national park with temperate rainforests, it’s wild to think it could also have glaciers!
The biggest glacier is Blue Glacier on Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the park. It can reach up to 900 feet thick and 2.6 miles long—the equivalent of 20 trillion ice cubes!
Around 17,000 years ago, ice sheets covered most of the Pacific Northwest, carving out the land, except on the Olympic Peninsula! The ice sheets moved around the Olympic Mountains and carved out features like the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound.
Despite missing most of the giant ice sheets, glaciers within Olympic National Park left scars on the land in the form of lakes: Lake Ozette, Lake Quinault, Lake Cushman, and Lake Crescent. We talk about our favorite way to enjoy the Lake Crescent Lodge area and other popular activities in our podcast episode “Exploring Olympic National Park – How to Plan the Best Trip.”
Lake Crescent used to be a lot larger than it is now, but a landslide cut it off and formed a second lake. You can see Lake Sutherland driving from the town of Port Angeles into the park. Many of the rivers in Olympic National Park are glacier-fed, including the Elwha River, Hoh River, and Sol Duc River.
3: There are 24 endemic species living in Olympic National Park
Remember the enormous ice sheets that surrounded the Olympic Peninsula? It created unique conditions where life briefly evolved isolated from the rest of the world.
Because of this isolation, Olympic National Park is home to 16 endemic animal species and eight endemic plant species. Endemic means this is the only place in the world where these specific creatures and plants live.
Olympic has its own slugs (not just the banana slug!), beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths, fish, salamanders, gophers, moles, chipmunks, and marmots. When hiking Hurricane Hill or Hurricane Ridge, you can find the Olympic marmot in alpine meadows.
Species like mountain goats aren’t necessarily native to the Olympic Peninsula, so they often get helicoptered out to places like North Cascades National Park. This helps keep alpine meadows and montane forests safe from overgrazing.
4: Olympic National Park gets between 12 to 14 feet of rain annually
There are four distinct temperate rainforest areas in Olympic National Park: Hoh, Quinault, Queets, and Bogachiel. These temperate rain forests wouldn’t be possible without the yearly 12 to 14 feet of precipitation Olympic National Park receives.
When you set foot in the Hoh Rain Forest, you feel like you’re stepping into primeval history. Most of the temperate rainforests are on the west side of the park near Forks, Washington. There are very few coastal forests like this in the contiguous United States, which is why sometimes there’s a two-hour entrance line to see the Hoh Rainforest.
Over 1,450 types of vascular plants live in Olympic National Park, nearly the same number as all the British Isles. Where there is rain, there are also mosquitoes.
5: The Olympic Peninsula was one of the last places explored in the lower 48 states
It might be hard to believe that any part of the state of Washington was unexplored for very long, given that it’s one of the top 15 most populous states in America. Between the rugged Pacific coastline, the impenetrable temperate rainforests, and snow-capped mountains, this was one of the largest wilderness areas and most challenging to access.
In 1885, newspapers around Seattle begged people to explore the Olympic Peninsula. The first few expeditions failed. Finally, in 1889, John Christie answered the call of these Seattle newspapers to explore the area. The vast wilderness of Olympic National Park took its toll on the expedition, but after six months, they made it through. Early settlers decided this wasn’t a great place to live, so they moved on to more fertile pastures.
Today, we love the ruggedness of Olympic National Park, but even now, parts of the park are difficult to access. That’s why we recommend grabbing one of our Olympic National Park itineraries so you can experience the best things about the park.
Don’t forget to complete your task for this week! Which national park would you have loved to discover before the explorers did? Head over to the Dirt In My Shoes Instagram or Facebook page and let us know!
Podcast minute markers
- Fun fact #1 (7:28)
- Fun fact #2 (18:58)
- Fun fact #3 (28:44)
- Fun fact #4 (36:06)
- Fun fact #5 (41:38)
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Olympic National Park
- Olympic National Park Fun Facts
- Geology of Olympic
- Glaciers and Climate Change in Olympic
- Wildlife of Olympic
- Olympic Temperate Rainforests
- Human History in Olympic
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