Last July, I flew from Austin to Seattle the week before the Puget Sound Fling. With well-planned timing, my husband was descending from the summit of Mount Rainier the same day my plane soared over its snow-capped peak. That evening we met up to begin a national parks tour across Washington.

Olympic National Park

Washington boasts three national parks: Olympic, North Cascades, and Mount Rainier. We started our tour by heading west to Olympic National Park‘s glacier-topped mountains, mossy rain forests, and cliff-plunging coast. At the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center, which felt high enough to skip a rock across the Olympic Mountains’ blue ridges, we enjoyed a meadow view with our picnic lunch.

Lupines were flowering in the meadows — so much later, in mid-July, than the Texas lupines (bluebonnets) of late March and early April.

Only 33 miles away, the Pacific Ocean blurs its denim blue with a cloud-smeared sky.

Sol Duc Falls

We hiked a few easy trails, including one to see Sol Duc Falls.

Three chutes of whitewater fall about 40 feet into a narrow canyon clothed with bright-green moss.

The water foams between bluffs topped with arrow-straight firs or spruces.

Cape Flattery

After a fried seafood dinner at Warmhouse Restaurant in Neah Bay, we drove to the Cape Flattery trailhead to watch the sunset. For those who enjoy visiting places that are the “most” of something, Cape Flattery is not to be missed. It’s the northwesternmost point in the contiguous United States, and the farthest west you can be in the U.S. to see the sun go down unless you trek to Alaska or Hawaii.

A 1.5-mile out-and-back trail, mostly boardwalk under the gloom of tall spruces, takes you to dramatic bluffs that shear off into the sea.

Well after 9 pm, the sun began its descent into the Pacific.

From the farthest overlook, you can see the Cape Flattery Lighthouse on Tatoosh Island.

OK, I guess that would be the westernmost point in the contiguous U.S. to watch the sunset, but it’s inaccessible to the public. It makes for a pretty view though.

Sunset watchers on the bluff’s “prow” below the viewing platform

People have been coming here for the views for thousands of years.

Light lingers in the sky this far northwest, and even after a post-sunset hike back to our car we enjoyed this twilight view of water and mountains.

Forks, Washington

Speaking of twilight, Twilight the vampire series is a big deal on the Olympic Peninsula. We spent the night in Forks, home to the fictional teenager Bella and Edward, her vampire love. The next day we poked into a few shops in town and were greeted by racks and shelves of Twilight merch.

Not sure if he’s Team Edward or Team Jacob

Hoh Rain Forest

To ensure we could get into Hoh Rain Forest, an extremely popular area of Olympic National Park, we arrived at the entrance before 8 am. We got in easily, but by the time we left a few hours later, cars were lined up at a standstill outside the gate. I’ve read it’s more scenic and much less crowded to visit at a rainier time of year, when the mosses are plumped up. But I still enjoyed the scenery of moss-dripping trees and Jurassic-sized ferns on several easy hikes we did.

Trees here seem tall enough to tickle the soles of clouds.

Their corpses make shoulder-high walls along paths.

Moss-shaggy tree monsters stalk among the ferns.

Others do limber backbends.

One fallen giant displays a heart-shaped root ball 16 feet tall. Along its top ridge, younger trees nourished by the decaying wood of the nurse tree grow head-and-shoulders above the surrounding forest.

Hoh Rain Forest lives up to its name with 138 inches of annual rainfall. That’s 11.5 feet of rain each year!

La Push Beach

Our last stop on the Olympic Peninsula was La Push, home to the werewolf Jacob in Twilight, where vampires are forbidden. A sign marks the fictional treaty line.

We parked at La Push Beach for a final stroll before heading to Tacoma.

I was amazed by the massive tree skeletons that had washed up as driftwood on the beach. Can you imagine the storms that carry these wave-scoured giants back to shore?

The roots of this one stand about 15 feet tall.

Future driftwood grows on sea stacks in the water.

What a stunning place.

Up next: Turquoise lakes of glacier melt in North Cascades National Park.

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Digging Deeper

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