Olympic National State Park
By: Owen Tasker
When this project was assigned to me, I thought this might be an Olympic training park. Yet when I looked at the NPS.gov website, I found out this is a national park for anybody to enjoy. This park is cool, but when it comes to the hot springs, you practically get boiled. In this park, there are some amazing things. I learned that Olympic National State Park is one of the best places to explore many different ecosystems, weather, activities, and terrain. Incredible right?
I discovered that Olympic National State Park is nearly 1,000,000 acres total. I think this park is very titanic. In time, I came to realize that the park I chose to research was very interesting. The park is located on the Washington State coast, in the northwest corner of the state. This surprises me for an ecosystem of forests. To me I envisioned a forest park near the middle of the state. After reading about the parks history, I found out that 12,000 years ago, there wasn’t yet any forest in the area, and that it has seen many changes. I believe that the preservation Olympic Park maintains, protects the history and the area, as visitors are revealing the history themselves by unearthing, and even just stumbling across artifacts from 1000’s of years before them.
Path
Small Waterfall
Rocky Stream
Olympic National State Park has many different activities available to visitors. The park is a very picturesque place to hike and partake in many activities including, hiking, audio tours, backpacking, bird watching, boating, climbing, night sky programs, ranger led programs, tide pool activities, wildlife viewing, camping; Seasonal activities during winter, are snow skiing, and snowshoe hikes. A boat load of activities, not joking! A running streak of cold weather, in the 30’s to 40’s degrees F in winter and up to ten feet of snow in places, is common. So cold it could freeze your feet off! The terrain is also very interesting. Some terrain features of Olympic National State Park include: tide pools, sea stacks, glaciers, forests, rivers, valleys, ridges, lakes, and mountains. If you want to visit, be prepared for anything. I think these this park’s rangers are courageous to maintain so many terrains.
292,800,082 visitors enjoyed Olympic National State Park during 2014. A lot of people right? Or am I wrong and imagining things? I think some of this number is mostly revisiting people, local’s as well as people on vacation. I deduce the revisits are because the park is beautiful, it is nice to take walks or hikes, and its various ecosystems mean the park can be enjoyed in many different ways each time you visit. Also, Olympic National State Park is now home to the reintroduced Fisher cat. Formally wiped out to this area, visitors are able to see them in their natural habitat, dauntless of them being hunted to extinction from the area ever again.
How Olympic National state park got its name
Once long ago, two gods were fighting. One god was named Jack and the other was Percy. Jack wanted the new park to be called Olympus, and Percy wanted it to be Olympic. The gods trained their giants until they had become as strong as the gods themselves. Finally on the day of the fight, the giants fought contemptuously. Finally, in all their sweat and tears, Jack’s giant fell into a spring, drowned, and Percy won, but his giant also fell to his death in the same pool. The spirits of the giants fought and heated the springs. And to this day, those giants are still fighting and heating the two pools, but the gods were still having an altercation and kept arguing until Percy finally won and called the park Olympic. The gods each used their giants callously. That is the legend of the hot springs at Olympic National State Park.
Hot headed gods and giants make for very hot springs.