Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, has something for everyone who enjoys nature, from hikers to stargazers to boaters to photographers. Visitors may hike through old-growth temperate rainforests, discover glacier-capped mountains, and marvel at more than 70 kilometers of untamed shoreline on the park's almost 1 million acres.

The Olympic Forest Reserve was established in 1897 as a result of mounting worries over the area's dwindling woods, prompting President Grover Cleveland to declare it as such. In response to a diminishing Roosevelt Elk population, President Theodore Roosevelt established part of the reserve as the Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909. Thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it wasn't officially designated as a national park until 1938. The park is now designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as an International Biosphere Reserve.