Olympic National Park day 1 - 9/20/2025
- sridgway38
- Sep 19
- 3 min read
We left the little seaside town of Langley early this morning, after visiting the excellent breakfast at the inn first. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Inn at Langley and would definitely return. Langley is one of those towns that’s hard to leave — Cute little shops and beautiful views, but the promise of the Olympic Peninsula was waiting.
The drive to the Clinton ferry was quick, and before long, we were gliding across the water toward the mainland. There’s something about riding a Washington State Ferry that feels like the start of an adventure. This time we had no fog and so we headed to the upstairs deck to enjoy the salt air, with everyone leaning against the rails, watching the shoreline disappear.
Once we reached the peninsula, we wound our way up to Hurricane Ridge inside Olympic National Park. The name sounds dramatic and it is. The road climbs through layers of forest and rock until suddenly you’re above it all, surrounded by jagged peaks and meadows. We didn't plan a long hike at Hurricane Ridge because we have a long day ahead but we took a short meadow trail just off the parking lot. We stayed just long enough to take in the view before heading west toward Lake Crescent.
We arrived to the Crescent Lake area by passing along the edge of the lake which was beautiful. We found parking at the Storm King Ranger Station parking lot, a large busy lot but people where coming and going quite a bit so it wasn't hard to find a spot. The parking area is very close to the start of the Marymere falls train. The trail was relatively short, well used, and shaded. The only moderately difficult part of the trail was at the very end when you reach the falls and includes a very short, one way loop that climbs up a could of flights of stairs to see the falls.
By afternoon, we reached the coast and pulled into Kalaloch Lodge, where we’d reserved one of the Bluff Cabins overlooking the Pacific. Ours was Bluff Cabin 1 — perched just above the beach, with the sound of the waves rolling in beneath the windows. We were surprised by the mass of wood that had accumulated on the beach below the cabin, and would find that it was common on all of the beaches in the area.
We unpacked and enjoyed the fresh air from the adirondack chairs just outside of our cabin looking out over the bluff to the beach.
We had made reservations at the Creekside restaurant onsite, which is really your only food option unless you want to buy something at the Mercantile and eat it in your cabin. The restaurant was packed with a wedding in the back room and we were glad that we made reservations because they weren't seating people without one. The lodge and cabins here are rustic and the restaurant is a bit dated but the food was fantastic. We really enjoyed it and made reservations for all of the following days for breakfast and dinner.
We also found out that the Bluff Cabins which had been closing due to erosion, were scheduled for more closures, including our cabin, Bluff Cabin 1 which will close in November. All of the Bluff cabins will close soon because of the King Tides and storms. It was fun to stay in one of them before they go for good. The view was gorgeous. There will still be other cabins just across the road as well as 2 lodges full of rooms.