A Week in Washington’s National Parks

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I’ll start by saying that while we haven’t been on this trip yet, I’ve planned it like all of our other trips. My husband and I were so excited to spend a week in Washington. We were originally supposed to go in the summer of 2020, which was canceled. So, we rebooked everything to go the summer of 2021, but the trip was canceled again. My husband and I were an a roll, road tripping through national parks around the United States when we had PTO to use. For this trip, we wanted to spend a week in Washington’s National Parks.

Washington state has three national parks: Olympic, Mount Rainier and North Cascades. Originally we weren’t going to go to Mount Rainier but when we rebooked the trip, we added a day for that park. Olympic National Park is located to the west, across the bay from Seattle. The park has everything from beaches to mountains to rainforests. Mount Rainier is an active volcano located southeast of Seattle, the park itself is small but looks beautiful. North Cascades National Park is located northeast of Seattle near the Canadian border. This park includes some of the Cascade Mountain range. Our plan was to start and end in Seattle. The drive time to make it to all three parks is about 15 hours (760 miles), which is manageable split over a week and provides a great opportunity to see Washington’s National Parks.

As with any trip to National Parks within the U.S. I’d recommend getting an annual pass. The passes are $80 and valid at all U.S. National Parks. Day passes range from $20-30. And always practice Leave No Trace principles. If you need a good book for the flights or to relax at campgrounds, check out my favorite books from 2021 for some inspiration!

Days 1-3 – Olympic National Park

Port Angeles

Our plan was to fly to Seattle in the evening and get a hotel close to the Seattle-Tacoma airport, or at least closer to Tacoma. Olympic National Park, the first stop on our Washington National Park road trip, is west of Seattle so we wanted to start out in that direction. Olympic is a large park, so I’d suggest planning your trip from the park map.

The main goal for the first day was to see Neah Bay before backtracking to stay in Port Angeles. Neah Bay is about four hours from Tacoma and located on the tip of Washington. The Cape Flattery trail seemed like the best way to see the views of the rocky coastline. The trail is on an Indian Reservation, so make sure you check for covid guidelines before trying to go.

Another option would be to explore the Hurricane Ridge area of the park instead of driving to Neah Bay. Some hike options that I’d consider in order of difficulty are: Cirque Rim, Hurricane Hill, and Griff Creek.

We had plans to stay at the Quality Inn Uptown in Port Angeles, and our backup was the Red Lion Hotel Port Angeles Harbor. We figured this day would be a lot of time in the car driving along the coast and stopping at viewpoints, so we didn’t plan too much.

Other trail options we considered were Shi Shi Beach and Point of the Arches or Ozette Triangle trail. These trails are about an hour and a half south of Neah Bay, so they’d add quite a bit of time driving back. They’re also longer, at about nine miles each. So they didn’t work for us but would be great options if you wanted to explore more about Neah Bay.

Sol Duc River Area

For the second day of our trip, we planned on heading into the park. The Sol Duc area of Olympic National Park is about an hour southwest of Port Angeles and where we planned on camping (at the Sol Duc Campground).

About a half an hour from Port Angeles, near Lake Crescent is the trailhead for Marymere Falls. This easy trails takes you from the lakeshore into the forest to a 90-ft waterfall.

Another 40 minutes south is the campground as well as the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. From the resort parking lot or campground you can access the Lovers Lane loop trail which will take you to Sol Duc Falls. This is a moderate hike coming in around 6 miles roundtrip.

From here, you could explore the hot springs (which look like normal pools to me?) or hang out at the campground for the evening.

Hoh Rain Forest & Kalaloch Areas

Our plan for the third day of our trip was to head out of park, drive around the national forest, and then into the Hoh Rain Forest area of the park. If you’re looking at the map, there’s a road that circles around the park and then spurs in various locations into the park.

The rain forest sounded so cool and we knew we’d want to stop there. Theis area is about 1.5 hours from the Sol Duc Campground. Our plan was to hike the Spruce Nature Trail and Hall of Mosses Loop. This easy trail is about 3 miles and provides some of the coolest areas to explore. Living in Denver, we obviously don’t have rain forests so this would have been a really awesome place to see.

Two other options for hikes are the South Fork Hoh River Trail or Colonel Bob Trail. The first is 8 miles and considered moderate. The second is almost 16 miles and rated as difficult. These three hikes are located at different trailhead and are not easily accessible from one to another, so I wouldn’t suggest doing more than one in one day.

From the Hoh Rain Forest area, we were planning on heading west to the Kalaloch area of the park on the coast. When you get to the coast, stop at Ruby Beach along the way. Further south, there are four beaches to explore as well as the Kalaloch Rocks. We were going to camp at the Kalaloch Campground this night. The campground isn’t on the beach. It is walking distance and some sites overlooking the water.

Days 4 & 5 – Mount Rainier National Park

Unfortunately, we didn’t get too far into planning this part of the trip. If you’re going to go to Mount Rainier, just like Olympic, study the park map before and plan out where you want to stay/camp with where you want to hike. There’s a road that connects the southern and eastern parts of the park, but the northwestern corner is separate. Each of the four corners of the park, with Mount Rainier in the center, has their own option for campgrounds, picnic areas and hikes.

For the northwest corner, I would have been interested in hiking the Tolmie Peak Trail. This one is around 5.5 miles with just over 1,500-ft of elevation change and is considered moderate. The peak provides sweeping views of the surrounding mountains, the volcano and some lakes. The campground for this area is at Mowich Lake.

Near the southwestern corner of the park is the Skyline Trail. This hike is difficult coming in at just over 6 miles with almost 1,800-ft of elevation change. The campground near here is Cougar Rock or you could stay at the Paradise Inn within the park.

Most of the hikes we looked at were in the northeast corner of the park. This area’s campground is White River and is about 4 hours from the Kalaloch Campground. We considered four hikes for our two-ish days at this park, which one we chose was going to depend on when we arrived at the park and how early we wanted to head out for the North Cascades.

Our favorites for shorter hikes were the hike to the Mount Fremont Lookout (6 miles) or the Naches Peak Loop (3.5 miles). If we were up for longer hikes, we were excited about the Burroughs Mountain & Glacier Basin Loop or the Summerland Trail (both are between 10-10.5 miles long). Based on timing, we probably would’ve done one long hike the first day and not hiked the second or done the two shorter hikes over two days.

Days 6 & 7 – North Cascades National Park

North Cascades is about 5 hours from Mount Rainier. We were really excited to get to this park. Our plan was to spend two days hiking in the area and stay at the Colonial Creek Campground one night and then the Mt. Baker Hotel another night. At this point, we had been camping for a while and wanted to stay in a hotel before heading to Seattle to explore. This park is a little easier to explore than the other two, but it’s always good to have the Park Map handy.

For our two days here, we chose hikes that were near our campsite at the Colonial Creek South Campground near Diablo Lake. The furthest is the Blue Lake Trail which is about 40 minutes east. This trail is 4.6 miles with 920-ft of elevation change and is considered moderate. Also about 40 minutes east, but fewer miles, is the trailhead for Maple Pass. This trail is about 7.5 miles with almost 2,200-ft of elevation change and is considered difficult. The stock photo below is of Lake Ann which you traverse around on this hike. Next up is the Easy Pass trail. This one is almost 8 miles with almost 3,000-ft of elevation change and is also considered difficult. The trailhead is about 30 minutes east of the campground.

From the campground, you can access the Thunder Creek Trail. The entire trail is over 10 miles long and considered moderate. From what I’ve read, you could hike the first few miles to a suspension bridge then turn back and still enjoy the hike.

Another option, if you wanted to explore a different area of the park is the Cascade Pass trail. It’s directly south of Diablo Lake, but on the other side of the mountains, so it’d be about 1.5 hours of a drive. The hike is 6.5 miles with almost 1,800-ft of elevation change and is considered moderate. The Johannesburg Campground is located near the trailhead.

Day 8 – Seattle

From the hotel just outside of the North Cascades park, it’s about an hour and a half to Seattle. When we get around to booking this trip for a third time, we might consider just heading into the city so that we can wake up and be there (and be clean). One other option we considered to extend the trip was to visit one or some of the islands off the coast of Washington in the bays. About an hour west of the North Cascades is Anacortes, WA which has ferries that can take you to the various islands. It’d be a change of scenery and looks awesome to us.

While in Seattle for the day, we wanted to explore as much as we could. We decided to stay at the Holiday Inn Downtown – Lake Union since it was central to most of what we wanted to see in the city. From what I found, most of the hotels in the area had the same rates. Be sure to check parking if you’re going because it’s not cheap downtown even at the hotels.

Some of the stops on our list included: Pikes Place Market, the Space Needle, go on an Underground Tour, stop by the Gum Wall, and wander in Pioneer Square. Depending on your interests (or weather) there are quite a few museums that look fun including the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of History & Industry, or the Boeing Tour. On a previous trip, I stayed near Green Lake and visited the Gas Works Park which was really cool. We only planned on spending one day here, but you could explore Seattle and the Washington National Parks for a long time and still discover new things.