Hurricane Ridge is another popular destination within Olympic National Park and for a good reason. I’ve always loved snowy mountains so we made sure to hit this attraction early in the season to get the best views. Hurricane Ridge is just 18 miles south of Port Angeles, Washington and a great day trip. Named for the winds that can gust over 75 miles per hour, we were happy to hike on a non-windy day.
There are a few day hike options up at Hurricane Ridge depending on how far you want to hike. Sunrise Trail is a nice short hike that still affords incredible views of the Olympic Range and back down to Port Angeles and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Just the parking lot of Hurricane Ridge is 5,242′ and the hikes all go up so if you aren’t used to altitude it may be more challenging for you. The highest mountain in the range, Mt Olympus, is 7,980′ and it’s visible from the the ridge.
Hurricane Ridge via Hurricane Hill was a 7 mile hike because the road down to the trailhead lot for this hike was closed. That meant hiking about 1.5 miles down the road to the official trail. I’ve read that the road is now open so we missed it by a few days. Darn. The trail itself is actually all paved as well. That doesn’t make it easy though…it’s still about 1234′ of elevation gain on the hike.
This hike is all about the views. You’ll see from the pictures below, just how spectacular the views are.
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