Olympic National Forest

Surrounding Olympic National Park on three sides, Olympic National Forest covers 628,000 acres of the Olympic Peninsula's temperate rainforests, wild rivers, and rugged mountains. The forest protects some of the finest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest, where annual rainfall exceeding 140 inches nourishes towering Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and western red cedar draped in thick curtains of moss and ferns. Five Wild and Scenic Rivers -- the Dosewallips, Duckabush, Hamma Hamma, Quinault, and Dungeness -- carve deep valleys from alpine headwaters to saltwater estuaries.\n\nThe Colonel Bob and Buckhorn Wilderness areas protect old-growth forest and alpine terrain complementing the adjacent wilderness within Olympic National Park. The forest is vital for Pacific salmon recovery, managing critical spawning and rearing habitat for threatened Puget Sound chinook and Hood Canal summer chum.\n\nRecreational opportunities include hiking, fishing, mushroom foraging, and hunting across a landscape transitioning from sea level to over 5,000 feet. The Olympic Peninsula's isolation from the mainland Cascades has fostered unique endemic species found nowhere else.