Olympic National Park in Washington

Olympic National Park is 922,651 acres, more than 1 times the size of Seattle. It is the largest intact primeval rain forest in the contiguous 48 states.

Olympic National Park encompasses the glacier-clad spires that crown the peninsula as well as the wild and windswept beaches of the Pacific coast. It shelters a rare temperate rainforest ecosystem found only in a few pockets elsewhere in the world.

The park contains three distinct ecosystems coastal forests and beaches, dense lowland temperate rain forest and alpine forests and glaciated highlands.

One of the hallmark features of Olympic National Park are its vast expanses of unbroken forest. Some of the stands have not been greatly disturbed in more than 1000 years, and the result is an old growth community of outstanding diversity.

The Olympic Mountains are renowned for the stands of fir, hemlock, cedar, and spruce that clothe their flanks on all sides but attain their climax in the rainforest of the western valleys.

Rainfall, on average is between 12 to 14 feet on the west side of the park, making it the wettest place in the contiguous United States.
Olympic National Park in Washington