Family Travel: Olympic National Park Part 3: Kalaloch Beaches and Quinault Rainforest

** Update Jan 2018:  Hello there, and Happy New Year! I just realized I never completed my 3 part series/ summary of our June 2017 trip to Olympic national park.  I had part 3 in drafts, but am sharing now so that some of you might be able to reference it for your summer 2018 vacation planning!  I've created a label "ONP" to make it easier to search for all the related posts.

*Back in June 2017, we visited Olympic National Park as a family of 10 (2 grandparents in late 60's and children as young as 2).  All of the activities mentioned are suitable for a healthy, average fitness, family - though, we did carry the 2 year old at times.

Day 5: Ruby Beach & Beach 4

On day 5, we visited the coastal portion of Olympic National Park.  We live by the pacific coast in Southern California, so I wasn't sure what to expect but I was sure blown away with the beauty and bounty of the tide pools in the Pacific Northwest.  We visited Ruby Beach and Beach 4.  We checked the tide schedule and planned our visit to Ruby Beach around low tide.  To get to Ruby beach, you do need to climb over some large driftwood.  Our 4 year old enjoyed this quite a bit, and our 2 year old was comfortably carried by myself or daddy. We did not find the path to the beach difficult, but do recommend taking your time on the driftwood if you are elderly or with younger children.

Family Travel: Olympic National Park Part 2: Hoh Rainforest

*Activities in this post are suitable for healthy individuals from 2 years old to 70 years old.  We did backpack carry our 2 year old in a Tula carrier at times on the hikes. 

On day 4, we moved rental homes from the east side of Olympic National Park (Lake Sutherland) to southwest Quinault Rainforest (Amanda Park/ Lake Quinault) area.  On our drive over, we stopped for lunch and some groceries at Forks (biggest town on the way to Lake Quinault), and visited the awesome Hoh Rainforest. 

When people think of Olympic National Park, Hoh Rainforest comes up as one of the top highlights.  I'll let the pictures do the talking :) 

Family Travel: Olympic National Park Part 1: Hurricane Ridge, Sol Duc Valley

*Activities in this post are suitable for healthy individuals from 2 years old to 70 years old.  We did backpack carry our 2 year old in a Tula carrier at times on the hikes.  We travelled from our rental home on Lake Sutherland. 

Day 2:  Exploring Lake Crescent & Hurricane Ridge, 

Our little hikers - Brian (2) and Alex (2) 

Cousins enjoying the Lake Pleasant area

We began our day with a hike to Marymere Falls, near Lake Crescent  This was a 1.8 mile out and back trail through the forest to a waterfall, which our family greatly enjoyed.  It is mostly flat,  except the final part where you climb some steep steps to view the waterfall. Our 2 year old walked most of the first half himself (0.8miles), and then we put him in the backpack carrier before climbing up the steps.  The other kids (4,5,10) and the grandparents had no problem hiking this. 

After our hike, we went to the Lake Crescent lodge where we enjoyed a nice lunch. The view from the restaurant was beautiful, though I did not get a picture of it :).  The service was a bit slow - but the kids were entertained with coloring pages and crayons. We enjoyed our fish and chips and salmon.