Out of Seattle by ferry and around the peninsula: a memorial on a vanished dock, the shore of the largest house on the coast, a valley a dam drowned and gave back, the treaty that names whaling, and one of the wettest forests in the country.
4 days · 485 miles · best in spring & summer & fall
Seattle, WA → Seattle, WA
The Olympic Peninsula sits across the Sound from Seattle and is easy to underestimate. Most of it is national park with no road through the middle, so the way around is US-101, which loops the mountains on three sides. This trip crosses Puget Sound by ferry and spends four days on that loop: through Suquamish country to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, out to Neah Bay at the end of the road, down the outer coast past the rain forest, and home along the south Sound. Much of it is the story of people who stayed or came back: the Japanese American families of Bainbridge, the Suquamish, the Lower Elwha Klallam, the Makah and their treaty, and a Nisqually fisherman arrested more than fifty times for fishing on his own river.
The drive, day by day
Press play to run the whole route, drag to any mile, or jump straight to a day. Every stop links to its own page.
Day 1 · Across the Sound to the Strait
Setting out from Seattle, WA · first stop Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
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Day 1
Across the Sound to the Strait
79 mi · about 3 hrs driving · overnight in Port Angeles
Take the ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, about thirty-five minutes across the Sound, and drive around Eagle Harbor to the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, whose cedar wall runs down through the trees to the site of the dock where the island's Japanese American families were put aboard a ferry in March 1942. Cross Agate Passage to Suquamish and Old Man House Park, the shore where the largest plank house known on the coast stood until a federal agent had it burned in 1870. The grave of siʔał is up the hill. Then take the Hood Canal Bridge and US-101 west along the Strait. Sleep in Port Angeles.
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Day 2
The Elwha and the End of the Road
99 mi · about 3 hrs driving · overnight in Neah Bay
West of Port Angeles, turn up the Elwha to the Madison Falls trailhead, where the road is closed to cars. The Glines Canyon Spillway Overlook is about three and a half miles on, on foot or by bike along the old road: a morning's walk to stand where a 210-foot dam stood until 2014, above a valley that was a reservoir for most of a century. Back on the highway, follow SR-112 west along the Strait through Clallam Bay and Sekiu to Neah Bay. Buy a Makah Recreation Permit, give the afternoon to the Makah Cultural and Research Center, and drive out to the Cape Flattery trail before dark. Sleep in Neah Bay.
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Day 3
Rain Forest and Outer Coast
152 mi · about 4 hrs driving · overnight in Lake Quinault
Leave Neah Bay early and go south by SR-113 and US-101 through Forks to the Upper Hoh Road. The Hoh Rain Forest visitor center is at its end, eighteen miles in, with the Hall of Mosses loop beside it; in summer the line at the entrance station grows through the morning, so come early. Back on US-101 the highway finally reaches the ocean at Ruby Beach, with Destruction Island and its lighthouse offshore. Far up this coast, near Cape Alava and reached only on foot, is where three Japanese sailors came ashore in 1834. Continue south past the Kalaloch beaches and inland to Lake Quinault. Sleep at the lake.
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Day 4
Home by the South Sound
155 mi · about 3.5 hrs driving · overnight in Seattle
US-101 runs south out of the forest to Aberdeen and Hoquiam on Grays Harbor, and from there the highways cut east to Olympia at the head of the Sound. Just beyond it, walk the boardwalk at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, a mile out across a delta where the dikes came down in 2009 and the tide came back over the old pasture. Billy Frank Jr. grew up a few miles upriver and helped push for it. Then I-5 north to Seattle.
The drives this trip follows
Each one is traced end to end on its own page, with every stop worth making along the way.
