You may find over 350 lakes if you are willing to search all the high and secret places of the park. The forest is fantastically verdant and filled to abundance with wildlife including the world's largest herd of Roosevelt elk. Black bears are ubiquitous. Mountain goats wander into camps. Weather created by the nearby ocean and the sudden rise of the Olympic Mountains creates unpredictable conditions that tend toward wet.
Winter snows smother the high country.
Separate from the vast interior portion, the park includes 57 miles of beach, most of it grandly isolated, splendidly wild, wave and storm-wracked. The northern beach is one of my all-time favorite hikes. There are almost 600 miles of trails leading into the interior of the park. From the west side the Hoh Trail follows the Hoh River for 18 miles with relative ease. Here the fishing can be excellent and the hushed rainforest through which you walk is carpeted with ferns, lush and otherworldly.