#8 Olympic National Park Quarter Bear part of the America the Beautiful Series
Olympic National Park is found on the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington and is composed of over 900,000 acres. That location on the peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Olympic Mountains, has resulted in the park’s ecosystem being mostly endemic and thus providing a true glance into the past of the region.
The park itself is composed of three very different regions. Among these is a Pacific coastline which stretches for 73 miles and consists of patches of beach and wilderness. Some of the beaches are sand while others are filled with rocks and boulders making hiking the coastline extremely difficult.
Also found within the park are the Olympic Mountains. This glaciated mountain range is dominated on the western half by Mount Olympus which rises up 7,695 feet and receives a large amount of snow. The eastern edge is much dryer and is topped by Mount Deception at 7,788 feet.
Finally, the park has a temperate rain forest which receives an average of 150 inches of rainfall a year. That moisture qualifies the forest as the wettest area in the continental United States. Common trees within the forest are Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock and Coast Douglas-fir, with approximately 366,000 acres considered old-growth.
Creatures within the park are also abundant. Among them are the iconic Roosevelt Elk as well as the Olympic Marmot which is known to only exist within the park’s boundaries.