Frommer's National Parks of the American West - Don Laine [303]
Winthrop Brewing Company
155 Riverside Ave. ☎ 509/996-3183. Main courses $5–$17. MC, V. Sun–Thurs 11:30am–10pm, Fri–Sat 11:30am–midnight; shorter hours in winter. AMERICAN.
In a tiny, wedge-shaped building in downtown Winthrop, this local watering hole is by far the liveliest restaurant and bar in town. The walls are covered with the owner's cigarette lighter collection, as well as old rifles and beer coasters from around the world. There's a deck out back overlooking the river, and in summer a beer garden. On weekends the place usually books some kind of live music. The menu is typical pub fare—burgers, fish and chips, steaks, sandwiches, chicken, fish, and ribs.
26
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK
by Don & Barbara Laine
GET READY FOR SENSORY OVERLOAD. OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK IS AN area of such variety in climate and terrain that it's hard to believe it's just one park. Here you can view white, chilled alpine glaciers; wander through a green, sopping-wet rain
forest; or soothe your muscles with a soak in a hot springs pool. Or perhaps you'd prefer to ponder the setting sun from the sandy Pacific coastline, or disappear from the outside world altogether in the deep green forests of largely untouched mountains.
In the Olympic Mountains, remnants survive of 2-million-year-old glaciers that once crept northeast toward what are now the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Hood Canal. The 60 glaciers inside the park continue to grind and sculpt the mountains now as they did then, if only a bit more slowly. Farther down some of the steep coastal valleys traversing the peninsula lie the major temperate rain forests in the contiguous United States. In addition, Olympic National Park contains the longest stretch of uninterrupted coastal wilderness area of any park south of Alaska.
Water is serious business here. Precipitation is measured in feet, not inches, with some areas receiving up to 20 feet in a single season. Contrast this with some parts of the drier eastern side of the peninsula, which receive a comparatively paltry 20 inches on average. Again, variety is the rule. If the crystalline, jade waters of the glacier-fed lakes feel a little too cold for comfort, you have the opportunity to warm your bones in hot springs in the northern section of the park.
Despite its inherent ruggedness, raininess, and mysterious nature, the interior of the park began yielding its secrets in the mid- to late 1800s. Unbridled curiosity and the inevitable desire for timber, mineral, and tourism dollars played a part in its exploration. Homesteads had been established by westward-moving pioneers on the periphery of the peninsula as early as the mid-1800s. However, the first documented exploration of the interior didn't occur until 1885, and it was no easy feat. One group of explorers spent a grueling month hacking through dense brush to
get from Port Angeles to Hurricane Ridge. (Today, the trip takes approximately 45 min. by car.)
On the advice of these adventure-some explorers, Congress declared most of the peninsula a national forest. Then, in 1909, just before leaving office, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, an avid hunter, established Mount Olympus National Monument. It was set aside to preserve the summer range and breeding grounds of dwindling herds of Roosevelt elk (flatteringly named for the president himself in a brilliant piece of prelegislative public relations). In 1938, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt turned the national monument into a national park, and in 1953 the coastal strip was added. Finally, in 1981, the park was declared a World Heritage Park.
Today, Olympic National Park encompasses more than 900,000 acres of mountains and rain forests, glacial lakes, and Pacific shoreline. By a fortunate stroke of planning or a fortunate lack of money, no roads divide the interior of the park. Consequently, large sanctuaries exist here for elk, deer, eagles, bear, cougars, and other inhabitants and visitors to its interior.
Avoiding the Crowds. Avoiding the crowds in Olympic National Park is not as simple