Sea of Evergreens
After hours of driving, we finally enter Olympic National Park, and the world shifts almost immediately. The air feels thicker somehow—greener. Older.
We stop at an overlook and climb a short trail that opens onto a wide platform suspended above what can only be described as a sea of evergreens. Not a forest. A sea. Rolling, endless, deep green waves stretching farther than my eyes can responsibly process.
We stand there for a moment, quiet. Then, naturally, we make jokes about how Washington truly earned its title as the Evergreen State. Subtlety is not its brand. It is aggressively evergreen.
After taking it in—and confirming that yes, there are in fact that many trees—we head back to the car.
The Way to the Top.... and Back Down Again
We stop at a few more viewpoints, each offering its own dramatic arrangement of mountain peaks and forested valleys. It’s not a long drive before we reach what appears to be the top. Or at least a top. The road simply… ends. There is nowhere else to go unless we plan to sprout wings.
I step out to take a few photos of the peaks while Jeremy runs inside the visitor center to explore. The mountains stand tall, looking ancient and unconcerned, as though they’ve seen far more impressive visitors than us.
After snapping a few pictures, I study the park map more closely and make an important discovery: there are not many roads here. Olympic National Park is not interested in convenience. If we want to explore another section, we’ll have to leave the park entirely and re-enter somewhere else.
Which, thanks to my America the Beautiful pass, feels less like an inconvenience and more like a strategic repositioning.
Jeremy returns from the visitor center, and after a brief consultation worthy of much more seasoned adventurers, we decide to leave the park.
This is, without question, the shortest amount of time we have ever spent in a National Park. We essentially waved at it from a scenic height and said, “We’ll be back.”
And somehow, I think it believed us.
