Olympic National Park week

It’s Sunday evening - June 21, 2026. I’m in Merlin at Hobuck Beach campground on the far Northwestern tip of the continental U.S. I’m here a night, so that I can explore Cape Flattery and the area tomorrow before heading back into Olympic National Park. I’m here on the Olympic Peninsula for a week + this early summer. The primary reason is a photography workshop put on by Scott Kranz and Stephen Matera - two Seattle-based photographers that I respect and enjoy their work. We’ll be doing sunrise/sunset/moon/astro photography at the end of this coming week. So, I figured - why not come to the peninsula earlier and spend a week getting to know the place a bit more. I’ve been here a few times previously over the 2 1/2 decades I’ve lived in the PNW. But, this trip of around 10 days will be the longest, so I hope to get a really good appreciation for the subalpine, rain-forest, and coastal eco regions of this crown jewel of National Parks.

Thursday after work, I took the Bainbridge Island ferry across Puget Sound to begin my journey. After landing on the west side of the Sound, I spent a couple hours in heavy traffic getting up to the Heart O’ The Hills campground on the north side of Olympic National Park. This is a large classic NPS campground - and also one which is First Come, First Serve. So, I was kinda taking my chances by trying to get a spot on a Thursday evening of a 3-day weekend in the beginning of the tourist season. Well, thankfully, I found several open spots throughout the campground. I selected site #47 in the C Loop which was a nice forested spot on one of the corners of the campground road.

Heart O’ The Hills Campground - site 47, C Loop

After paying for two nights (kinda a cool system where you scan a QR code to pull up a site to pay for the site with a credit card), I set up the van and relaxed in my camp chair and ate the Pagliacci pesto/pasta salad with canned salmon. Around 9:30 PM, I heard the hoot-hoot-hoot of a Northern Pygmy Owl - the first of the year for me. I figured the week was off to a great start by hearing that bird.

The next morning, i arose at 4:45 am to try and listen (and see) the Marbled Murrelets as they fly back to their old-growth forest nests from fishing during the week morning hours and bring the food back to their chicks on the nest. These seabirds nest in old-growth forests and live the rest of their lives at sea. It’s a really really interesting bird for me - in fact, one of my favorites. It was a mysterious bird for many years as no one really knew where they nested. But, in 1974 a logger in the Redwood National Forest area was up in a tall tree and found a Marbled Murrelet nest which great expanded the knowledge of these really great birds! Unfortunately, I didn’t hear any Marbleds flying overhead (they do a “keer, keer” call apparently sort of like a tern. At one point I did see a smallish bird hauling ass way overhead from north to south. But, I didn’t get my binoculars on it in time and it didn’t call out. So….maybe I saw one? I wasn’t confident enough to mark it on eBird.

After the early morning birding (which was actually really birdy apart from the murrelets), I took a nap in Merlin and then ate breakfast before hiking the little “Heart O’ the Forest” trail at the campground. I thought I’d start the trip off with a great old-growth forest trail. It sure was a pretty trail with some extremely large trees (6-8’ diameter) mixed in with smaller (4-5’ diameter) conifers. And, quite a few wildflowers and birds, too. There weren’t too many people on the trail - which was another plus. I did keep leap-frogging a couple from California who were on a PNW adventure in their van. So, I talked with them from time to time. At the end of the trail - about 2.3 miles from the trailhead, I sat near this creek and enjoyed the scenery before turning around and headed back to camp.

Heart O’ The Hills Trail - Olympic National Park

Back at camp, I organized a few things in the van and sat outside and read a little bit of this book about the natural history of Olympic National Park. I grilled out a bratwurst with fixin’s for dinner before attending the 7:30 PM campground ranger program. That night’s talk - by Ranger Megan - was on Mustelids. I had never heard the term mustelids before, so I’m glad I went to this program. Mustelids are the little carnivorous mammals such as weasels, martens, fishers, and otters. She emphasized, of course, the ones in the park. It was fascinating to hear the stories about these little critters! Back at camp, I had a beer before hitting the sack where I slept quite peacefully all night.

Saturday morning, I awoke at 4:45 am again, to try for the Murrelets…and again no luck. Yet, I did have a decision: should I stay one more night at Heart O’ The Hills - or head over to the far NW corner of the U.S. and stay at Hobuck Beach campground on the Makah Indian reservation. After thinking about it a bit while eating breakfast, I decided to stay one more night. The campground was really nice and I had a great spot and I still hadn’t gone up into the subalpine zone of Hurricane Ridge (though, the photo workshop surely will). I’m glad I made this decision as it allowed me to drive up to Hurricane Ridge on a very beautiful day with sunny blue skies and temps in the 60s. There were, of course, lots of people from all over the world visiting at the same time I was. I hiked the Sunrise Ridge trail - which is also part of (or also named?) the Klahane Ridge trail. The first section of this trail which goes up to Sunrise Point was super super popular with people. But, once I passed the point and hiked along the Sunrise Ridge - there were far fewer people. This trail was really great as it got into the subalpine - above the trees. And, there were lots of butterflies to study (this is a new thing for me…and I got a couple butterfly books to help me!) and TONS of wildflowers to see. I used “Seek” app quite a bit to document what all wildflowers I saw. There were some/quite-a-few that I didn’t know, so that tool helps me identify them on the fly. But, then I need to go back and read up about them when I’m not in the trail…so I can learn them.

Anise Swallowtail (I think) - Sunrise Ridge - Olympic National Park

Views from Sunrise Ridge

Cliff Douglasia

Back at camp, I took a nice shower in the van and relaxed a bit outside in my camp chair. A nearby group of either 2-3 younger couples with their young kids were really loud and obnoxious. They were throwing the football all around all around the campground road yelling VERY loudly whenever someone would drop or catch or pass the football. They were loud at their camp and they were loud even when they ate dinner at 9 PM. I honestly don’t know what it is with some people who insist on being very very loud at camp. All the other campsites were full - and were occupied with quiet people enjoying the evening. Oh well…I shouldn’t complain. They were out enjoying a Father’s Day weekend in a beautiful National Park.

The evening ranger program was a discussion on glaciers - or so it was entitled. However, it was more about climate change and what the impacts of the melting glaciers are doing to local eco systems. I didn’t mind the talk - though, I actually would have preferred it to be a bit more about the history of the glaciation of the park during the Ice Ages. After the program, back at camp, the loud group was quieter - though still louder than all the other nearby campers. That’s OK…I was soon in bed with the windows closed as it was a bit chilly and Merlin is pretty sound proofed. I did crack my bedroom window open a bit to let in some fresh air and also hear what might be calling out overnight. Sure enough, around 1:30 AM, the weirdest bird call starting going off. I didn’t know what I was - so I pulled up my phone and had Merlin (the app, not my van) give it a whirl. Within a few seconds, I picked up Barred Owl - consistently. It wasn’t doing the “Who Cooks for You…” song, so maybe it was a juvenile? I need to do more research on that particular call. Still - what a really cool thing!

Sunday morning, I slept in until 7:30 or so - I didn’t try for the Murrelets (which meant that if I did go, I probably would have heard them!). But, it was a transition day, so I packed up camp - which in a van is truly an amazingly easy and efficient thing - and headed out. I drove down into Port Angeles for coffee and a delicious breakfast sandwich at “Fog City Coffee” and a quick visit to the national park visitor center (which was absolutely jam packed at 09:00) and a refueling/grocery stop at Safeway. After that, I got out of town and drive to the Elwha River Valley to see a little waterfall there. I had hoped to see more of the valley, but the road is closed at the Madison Waterfall which is only about 2 miles up the road from 101. Still, I parked and walked the 1/8 mile trail to the really pretty waterfall. Afterwards, I did some birding at Ediz Hook (really really quiet from birds…though lots of people fishing by boat) and the Elwha River mouth area which was a nice beach with tons of sediment that has washed down the river since the two hydro electric dams up stream were removed by the park service in 2012. I remember reading about the dams removal and how greatly the wildlife habitat has improved since the removal off the dams. There was a pretty big flock of gulls that was fun to observe on the beach at the Elwha River mouth - and I tried identifying some of the hundreds I saw: mostly Olympic Gulls (hybrids of Western & Glaucous winged), a few Californias, a few Ring-billed, and even a Heerman’s! After the Elwha, I hit the northwest side of the state and birdied the Clallam Bay County Park which wasn’t too birdy, either. I did see a Common Loon out in the Strait, though, which was a surprise as I figured they should all be on the breeding lakes by now?!

Time was running short - as always when I’m birding - and I wanted to get to Neah Bay and Hobuck Beach before “too late”. After driving the really pretty coastline road to this most NW town in the continental U.S., I stopped at the Makah Mini Mart to buy the required “annual” permit which the Makah Tribe makes tourists buy. It’s only $20 and lasts all year - so if I come back this year (which I highly doubt), I can use it. So, now I’ve got this big orange placard in my windshield. Driving around town, you can easily tell the tourists with these orange cards in their windshields. I drove to the Hobuck Beach campground to find a “Campground Closed” sign. Yet, the little check-in office was opened (it was around 5 PM), so I went in and asked the clerk about the campground closed sign. He mumbled something about them wanting to start slowing down camp admissions for the night as it was starting to get full, but I was welcome to try and find a spot in the big open campground meadow. As I drove onto the meadow, I found many open spots, making me wonder why they put the sign up. I found a decent-ish flat spot along a row of trees between the ocean and the meadow. I can not see the ocean from my site - but, similar to Grayland Beach State Park - I can hear it. And, there is, of course zero privacy as the “campsites” are just kinda people pulled up in their cars or vans or campers pretty much anywhere.

The skies are fairly foggy/cloudy tonight, so I doubt there’ll be an interesting sunset - though, let’s see…sometimes things can change of an evening. I’m going to relax inside the van - it’s a bit chilly outside, plus, I want to have the van ready to leave tomorrow morning as I want to hike Cape Flattery to the far northwestern point and try my luck at Tufted Puffins on Tatoosh Island (among other birds) and bird a little bit in Neah Bay…then, let’s see where the road takes me!

Hobuck Beach Campground - Neah Bay, WA