The BEST 3 Day Road Trip in Olympic National Park | Full-Time Truck Camper Travel

We're Grayson and Ashley. We've been living on the road for nearly five years. We've been to 49 of 50 states, traveled throughout Canada, Baja Mexico, and have even driven to the Arctic Ocean. Right now we're on one of our biggest adventures yet, a road trip to the northeasternmost point in North America. We're documenting our life on the road, places we visit, and everything in between come along for our full-time adventure. In this video we will be spending the next three days road tripping through the magical and wildly diverse Olympic National Park. From waterfalls and coastal arches to stunning rainforests and mountains, this place has it all. We even made it to the northwesternmost point in the lower 48, Cape Flattery, and we're excited to bring you along. Welcome to Olympic National Park. It's located in northwest Washington and spans nearly a million acres of mountains, rainforests, and coastlines. And last time we were here was back in May of 2023 on our way to Alaska, and unfortunately we didn't get to explore as much as we had hoped for. And so that's exactly what we're doing in this video. We're going to be taking three days to hit all the spots we've been dreaming of. Let's explore Olympic National Park. We were hoping to start off our time in the area by doing the loop drive around Lake Quinault, but unfortunately there's an area on the loop drive that has been washed out, so right now it is not accessible. So we've decided to start off our time at Merriman Falls. It's a roadside waterfall. We can already see it. We parked. It's right across the street. It's a 40-foot waterfall, and we're excited to check it out. Typical PNW weather. It has already started raining after being here for just a few minutes, but it really does add to the overall beauty of the waterfall and the lush greenness minutes away from Merriman Falls is the world's largest Sitka spruce tree. It is almost a thousand years old and nearly 200 feet tall, and it's only a 0.1 mile walk from where you park. So we're almost there now, and thankfully the rain stopped as well. There are tons of tall trees around here, so you don't even see the tree until you turn this corner back here, and once you get on this bridge, look at that thing. Standing over 190 feet tall and nearly 12 feet wide, this Sitka spruce is one of the largest in the world, estimated to be over a thousand years old. It thrives in cool, wet climates with over 12 feet of annual rainfall growing stronger with each passing century. We are currently hiking the Maple Glade Loop Trail, which is a half mile loop trail through the Quinault Rainforest. We originally planned on hiking in the Ho Rainforest, but unfortunately there's a washout in that area also, so it's inaccessible to get to right now. But just from starting this trail, it's already so beautiful and lush, and I don't think we'll be disappointed at all. It's crazy how quiet it is here. We've only seen a few other people on this trail, and as you walk around you can hear the birds chirping, the little creeks that are next to us, and all the little critters flying around. It's really beautiful and it feels super magical, especially with being able to hear all of that, but also not hear a lot of people. See, hear that? They're really loud. The Quinault Rainforest gets up to 12 feet of rain each year, creating a lush green world of mossy trees, giant ferns, and misty trails. It's part of only a few temperate rainforests in the world, and it's often called the Valley of the Rainforest Giants, because it's home to record-sized trees like Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, and Douglas Fir. Many of these giants are hundreds of years old. The Quinault River winds through the forest, feeding into the still reflective waters of Lake Quinault. More rain! Our last stop for the day before finding camp for the night is Ruby Beach. You can see it already from where we're standing, but there are these steps that you can go down and walk along the beach. So we're going to head down there now, and it was only about 45 minutes away to drive here, so this is the perfect place to watch sunset and end our night. Ruby Beach is iconic for its dramatic sea stacks and driftwood-covered shores. At low tide, tide pools appear filled with starfish and anemones. The sand also supposedly has a reddish tint from garnet particles, giving the beach its name. While we didn't see this when we were there, I'm sure it's probably easier to see when the sun is high in the sky. Once we got down to the beach and saw how busy it was, we decided to keep walking, and there's literally no one over here, but you know what is over here? A seal. Where'd it go? It was somewhere in the water. I gotta see if I can find it again. It was just right here. It went underwater. I'm trying to look for its head again, but I don't see it. Where'd you go? There he is! You see him? Last night, we stayed in a little pull-off between Ruby Beach and the town of Forks, and we decided as we made our way north that we should stop and see what Forks is all about. A little fun fact about Forks is it's actually known as the rainiest town in the lower 48, averaging up to 120 inches of rain a year, which is like 10 feet. Super crazy. It's also known for the video series that was filmed based on this area, not actually filmed here, which is Twilight. We haven't really watched much of it or any of it at all, but we decided to stop on our way north to see what the hype's all about. It's ironic that this is the rainiest town in the lower 48, and yet it is a beautiful bluebird day, but that can change in the matter of two seconds, so just because it's sunny and nice out now doesn't mean it will stay that way, but honestly, fingers crossed because we have run into a lot of rain recently. Forks was such a cool little town. We definitely could have spent more time there, and if you're into any of those things like Twilight, Timber, learning more about the rainfall and all that kind of stuff, we definitely would recommend saving more time to be there a little bit longer, but we are now at Rialto Beach hiking the Hole in the Wall Trail. It's about a three-mile trail, and you can only get there during low tide, which is right now, so we're booking it there. Look at that. There's an eagle up there. We've made it to the spot that this hike is actually named for. You can see the hole in the wall here, and it perfectly frames a sea stack in the background, and it is a little bit busy, but honestly, a lot of people aren't actually walking through the wall to see what this hike is all about. This view is incredible. It's crazy how it perfectly frames the sea stack, and I think a lot of people are missing it, so if you come here, walk through the wall, come to the other side, and check that. I mean, look at that. Of course, Hole in the Wall is a huge highlight for this trail, but another highlight is the tide pools that you can see, so on our way back, we're going to check out some of the tide pools, and hopefully, we can see some cool stuff, maybe some starfish and other cool things like that. We got lucky, and we found a bunch of starfish. Turns out there's like six of them right here, and I'll tell you about the closest I'm going to get. There's one there. There's two stuck there. There's one there. There's actually a small one under him, kind of, and then there's two right there, so there's seven right here, and then this one under here is an absolute monster. Look how big that is. We found even more. Look at this. They're so big. Can you believe it? Now that we've found a few starfish, we just keep finding more and more. They are insanely huge. After checking Hole in the Wall off of our bucket list, we knew while we were up in this area, there is one more thing that's super high priority on our bucket list that we need to check off, and so we drove an hour and 45 minutes north to a place called Nia Bay, and there is the Macro Reservation, and on this reservation, you can actually access the northwestern most point of the Lower 48, which is called Cape Flattery. It's a one and a half mile round trip trail. We're super excited for it and can't wait to actually see it with our own eyes. We have officially made it to the northwestern most point in the Lower 48 that you can drive to, and it feels so surreal after planning this trip and just knowing that we were going to be here. Standing here just feels absolutely wild, and just looking around at all the beauty, and also being able to see Vancouver Island back there is pretty cool, and the sunset's in about an hour, so we're just going to soak up our time here, enjoy it, and hopefully catch a really good sunset. Standing here truly feels like we are at the edge of the world. Planning to be here is one thing, but seeing this view with our own eyes and knowing we are as far northwest as you can get to in the Lower 48 is a whole other feeling. It's hard not to feel grateful for places this wild and beautiful, and for the chance to keep checking off our bucket list together and sharing it with all of you. After watching the sunset last night at Cape Flattery, we drove around an hour and 45 minutes to a nice little hip camp. We had some things to get done on the camper like dumping our tanks and refilling them, but it was the perfect stop because our adventures today start only 10 minutes away from where we stayed last night. A quick stop at Bovee's Meadow is essential at Olympic National Park because you get a great view of Lake Crescent. Lake Crescent is a glacial carved lake that is 624 feet deep, and look at the surrounding views. They're absolutely beautiful, and the water is so blue, and we just love how accessible this lake is because you can actually drive around the entire lake, and we think that Bovee's Meadow is one of the best places to actually view it from like right next to it, but there are so many places to do that along the way. The last time we were in this area, we hiked to Devil's Punchbowl, which is a super blue part of the lake, and it's like a little swimming hole or kind of a big swimming hole. It's really beautiful. We're not doing it this time around, but if you are in the area, I definitely would put it on your list. Well, we can hang out at Lake Crescent all day and just enjoy its beauty. We've decided to do Mary Mary Falls Trail. This trail is about 1.8 miles. It's rated as an easy trail, and it was literally like a two-minute drive from our first stop, so this is the perfect Park, especially with this weather being as good as it's been and being surrounded by all of the greenery and the river, and I can actually already hear the waterfall. We're getting close to it now, but it is just such a beautiful day. The air feels so nice. It feels so clean, fresh. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's just such a good feeling, and I'm really excited to get to the waterfall. A little over two years ago, we actually visited Mary Mary Falls, and it's one of those sights you just don't forget. Watching that waterfall kind of flow down the rocks so beautifully between the green moss is something we remember so distinctly about this hike, obviously because that's what it's all about, but it's so cool to be able to come back and revisit places we've been in the past and get a fresh view of how beautiful and how amazing it is. If you've been following us for any amount of time, you would know that we absolutely love waterfalls, so of course while we're in this park, we need to hike to another one. So we drove 35 minutes away to Soul Duck Falls. This trail is 1.8 miles, and it's rated as an easy trail. We've also done this trail before, so you know it's a good trail when you're coming back for the second time, and this waterfall is just so unique and so beautiful, and you'll see what we're talking about when we get there. We made it to the waterfall, and let me show you what I'm talking about. So as you can see behind me, there's one, two, three mist that's coming off. It's just beautiful. For sunset, we were planning on going up to Hurricane Bridge and hiking up the Hurricane Hill Trail, but unfortunately we heard from some other hikers that it is covered in snow and not accessible right now, so we've decided to go back to Lake Crescent and watch the sunset from there. This whole park and whole area is just so beautiful that you really can't go wrong with any spot. We drove over to the lodge for sunset. Definitely not a bad place to spend the rest of the day, but we just wanted to thank you guys for watching this video and coming along with us on this journey, especially up to the northwesternmost point. That was so exciting for us and just a huge part of this road trip, so we're so happy that we made it, and it was so beautiful, and that we got to take you along. So if you did like this video, please make sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven't already, hit the bell to be notified when we post next, and we'll see you in the next video!