Olympic National Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Olympic National Park | |
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| IUCN Category II (National Park) | |
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| Location: | Washington, USA |
| Nearest city: | Seattle, WA |
| Coordinates: | |
| Area: | 922,561 acres (3,734 km²) |
| Established: | June 29, 1938 |
| Visitation: | 3,142,774 (in 2005) |
| Governing body: | National Park Service |
Olympic National Park is located in the U.S. state of Washington, in the far northwestern part of the state known as the Olympic Peninsula. The park can be divided into three basic regions: the Pacific coastline, the Olympic mountains, and the temperate rainforest. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt originally created Olympic National Monument in 1909 and after Congress voted to authorize a redesignation to National Park status, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the legislation in 1938. In 1976, Olympic National Park became an International Biosphere Reserve, and in 1981 it was designated a World Heritage Site. In 1988, almost all of the Olympic Peninsula was designated as the Olympic Wilderness, further enhancing the protection of the region.
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[edit] Coastline
Olympic's coastal strip is a rugged, often fog-enshrouded stretch of sandy beach and a small area of adjacent forest. It is over 50 miles long (just a few wide), interrupted only twice at the mouths of principal rivers, each with resident native communities. The Hoh are on the Hoh River and the Quileute live in the town of La Push at the mouth of the Quileute River. The Hoh are a branch of the Quileute. Unbroken stretches of wilderness range from 10 to 20 miles, but often seem much farther removed from the familiar.
While some beaches are luxurious sand, others are covered with difficult heavy rock and giant boulders. Brush, overgrowth, slippery footing, tides and rain forest weather all act to limit speed, even for strong hikers. Travel-time estimates should be doubled. It is notable that though the coastal strip is readily accessed (unlike the interior Olympics), there are typically very few folks beyond casual day-hiking distances. It is much more difficult terrain than it would seem.
The most popular piece of the coast is the Ozette Loop. The Park must run a registration and reservation program to control usage levels. From the trailhead at Lake Ozette, one leg of the trail is a boardwalk-enhanced path through near-primal coastal western redcedar-swamp. Once on the ocean, it is a few miles walk along choice aboriginal beach-habitat (no resident natives - an inactive branch of the Makah people of Neah Bay, not far to the north) to the other leg ... of boardwalk-enhanced path through conditions that would be brutally impossible for most people, without the elevate walkways. It is the boardwalks, and the select, benevolent beach-walk that make Ozette so popular.
There are thick groves of trees that march right up to the sand, which results in chunks of timber from fallen trees that litter the beach. The legendary Hoh River, toward the south end of the Strip, is substantially wild and discharges large amounts of naturally eroded timber and other drift, which then tends to move north, enriching the beaches. The removal of driftwood - logs, dead-heads, tops and root-wads from streams and beaches was a major domestication measure across North America: natural driftwood deposits form a commanding presence, biologically as well as visually, and the Strip gives a taste of the original condition ... but early beach-photos show astounding accumulations. Drift-material often comes from a considerable distance - the Columbia River formerly contributed huge amounts to the Northwest Pacific coasts.
Interestingly, the small coastal portion of Olympic isn't even connected to the much larger, main portion of the park. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had intended for them to be connected via a continuous strip of park land, but political forces decided otherwise.
[edit] Glaciated mountains
Within the center of Olympic National Park rise the Olympic Mountains whose sides and ridgelines are topped with massive, ancient glaciers. The mountains themselves are products of accretionary wedge uplifting related to the Juan De Fuca Plate subduction zone. The geologic composition is a curious mélange of basaltic and oceanic sedimentary rock. The western half of the range is dominated by the peak of Mount Olympus, which rises to 7965 feet (2,428 m). Mount Olympus receives a large amount of snow, and consequently has the greatest glaciation of any non-volcanic peak in the contiguous United States outside of the North Cascades. It has several glaciers, the largest of which is the Hoh glacier, nearly five kilometers in length. Looking to the East, the range becomes much drier due to the rain shadow of the western mountains. Here, there are numerous high peaks and craggy ridges. The tallest summit of this area is Mount Deception, at 7,788 feet.
[edit] Temperate rainforest
The western side of the park sports a temperate rain forest, including the Hoh Rain Forest and Quinault Rain Forest, the wettest area in the continental United States (the island of Kauai in the state of Hawaii gets more rain). Because this is a temperate rainforest, as opposed to a tropical one like the Amazon Rainforest in South America, it isn't dominated by tropical ferns, but rather contains dense timber, including spruce and fir, and mosses that coat the bark of these trees and even drip down from their branches in green, moist tendrils.
[edit] Natural history
Because the park sits on an isolated peninsula, with a high mountain range dividing it from the land to the south, it developed many unique plant and animal species (like the Olympic Marmot) that can't be found anywhere else in the world. It also provides habitat for many species (like the Roosevelt elk) that are native only to the Pacific Northwest coast. Because of this importance, scientists have declared it to be a Biological Reserve, and study its unique species to better understand how plants and animals evolve. A good book about the natural history of the region is Olympic National Park: A Natural History Guide by Tim McNulty.
[edit] Human history
Prior to the influx of European settlers, Olympic's human population consisted of Native Americans, whose use of the peninsula consisted mainly of fishing and hunting. However, recent reviews of the record, coupled with systematic archaeological surveys of the mountains (Olympic and other Northwest ranges) are pointing to much more extensive tribal use of especially the subalpine meadows than seemed formerly to be the case. Most if not all Pacific Northwest indigenous cultures were more or less severely adversely affected by European diseases (often decimated) and other factors, well before ethnographers, business operations and settlers arrived in the region, so what they saw and recorded was a much-reduced native culture-base. Large numbers of cultural sites are now identified in the Olympic mountains, and important artifacts have been found.
When settlers began to appear, extractive industry in the Pacific Northwest was on the rise, particularly in regards to the harvesting of timber, which began heavily in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Public dissent against logging began to take hold in the 1920s, when people got their first glimpses of the clear-cut hillsides. This period saw an explosion of people's interest in the outdoors; with the growing use of the automobile, people took to touring previously remote places like the Olympic Peninsula.
The formal record of a proposal for a new national park on the Olympic Peninsula begins with the expeditions of well-known figures Lieutenant Joseph O'Neil and Judge James Wickersham, during the 1890s. These notables met in the Olympic wilderness while exploring, and subsequently combined their political efforts to have the area placed within some protected status. Following unsuccessful efforts in the Washington State Legislature in the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt created Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909, primarily to protect the subalpine calving grounds and summer range of the Roosevelt elk herds native to the Olympics.
Public desire for preservation of some of the area grew until President Roosevelt declared ONP a national park in 1938. Even after ONP was declared a park, though, illegal logging continued in the park, and political battles continue to this day over the incredibly valuable timber contained within its boundaries. Logging continues on the Olympic Peninsula, but not within the park. A book detailing the history of the fight for ONP's timber is Olympic Battleground: The Power Politics of Timber Preservation by Carsten Lien.
[edit] Recreation
There are several roads in the park, but none penetrate far into the interior. The park features a network of hiking trails, although the size and remoteness means that it will usually take more than a weekend to get to the high country in the interior. The sights of the rain forest, with plants run riot and dozens of hues of green, are well worth the possibility of rain sometime during the trip, although months of July, August and September frequently have long dry spells.
A nearly unique feature of ONP is the opportunity for backpacking along the beach. The length of the coastline in the park is sufficient for multi-day trips, with the entire day spent walking along the beach. Although idyllic compared to toiling up a mountainside (Seven Lakes Basin is a notable example), one must be aware of the tide; at the narrowest parts of the beaches, high tide washes up to the cliffs behind, blocking passage. There are also several promontories that must be struggled over, using a combination of muddy steep trail and fixed ropes.
During winter, the popular viewpoint known as Hurricane Ridge offers alpine and nordic skiing opportunites. The Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club operates a not for profit alpine ski area which offers ski lessons, rentals, and inexpensive lift tickets. The small alpine area is serviced by two rope tows and one poma lift. Backcountry skiers often make their way down to the main Hurricane Ridge Road in order to hitchhike their way back to the top.
