page_title: Olympic Mountains
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Olympic Mountains / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Olympic Mountains with their winter coat of snow, as seen from Port Orchard, Washington.
context_page_description: The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus is the highest at 7,965 ft; however, the eastern slopes rise out of Puget Sound from sea level and the western slopes are separated from the Pacific Ocean by the low-lying 20 to 35 km wide Pacific Ocean coastal plain. The western slopes are the wettest place in the 48 contiguous states. Most of the mountains are protected within the bounds of Olympic National Park and adjoining segments of the Olympic National Forest.
  The mountains are located in western Washington in the United States, spread out across four counties: Clallam, Grays Harbor, Jefferson and Mason. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province, which is in turn a part of the larger Pacific Mountain System.
context_section_description: The Olympics have the form of a cluster of steep-sided peaks surrounded by heavily forested foothills and incised by deep valleys. They are surrounded by water on three sides, separated from the Pacific by the 20 to 35 km (12 to 22 mi) wide coastal plain.  The general form of the range is more or less circular, or somewhat horseshoe-shaped, and the drainage pattern is radial.
  Rivers radiate outwards to all sides.  Clockwise from windward to leeward, the major watersheds are: Satsop, Wynoochee, Humptulips, Quinault, Queets, Hoh, Bogachiel, Sol Duc (all flowing west into the Pacific Ocean; with the Satsop and Wynoochee by way of the Chehalis River, and the Humptulips by way of Grays Harbor at the mouth of the Chehalis River), Lyre, Elwha, Dungeness (all flowing north into the Strait of Juan de Fuca), Big Quilcene, Dosewallips, Duckabush, Hamma Hamma, and Skokomish (all flowing east into Hood Canal).
caption: The Olympic Mountains in winter, as seen from the east. The Brothers is the large double peak on the left, and Mount Constance is on the right.
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