CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Out of Olympia and back again: 602 km, roughly 9 h 37 in the saddle. On the way it passes Hurricane Ridge, Port Angeles, Lake Crescent and Forks. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 35 km this is Olympic Peninsula Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 28 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Washington's capital is a small, rather relaxed city at the very southern tip of Puget Sound, and it is where Highway 101 makes its last stand. The road, which begins its long loop of the Olympic Peninsula here, runs up the coast of the continent from California, and anyone arriving from Newport in Oregon will have been riding beside the Pacific for much of the way. Olympia itself sits on the shore of Budd Inlet, with the white Capitol dome on the hill above and the ferry-scarred waters of the sound just below.
Read the complete Olympia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Olympia is where the day begins. Next is Hurricane Ridge.
Hurricane Ridge is the high balcony of the Olympic Mountains, about sixteen miles of climbing from the sea at Port Angeles, reaching roughly 1,600 metres at the visitor centre. The road leaves the town, passes the national park entrance at Heart o' the Hills, and then winds up through Douglas fir and silver fir, with the forest thinning and the views opening out until the trees give way to alpine meadow. At the top, the whole range spreads out in front of you, jagged and white, with Mount Olympus sitting among the glaciers.
Read the complete Hurricane Ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hurricane Ridge comes up about 222 km into the recorded legs. Next is Port Angeles.
Port Angeles sits low on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula, facing the Strait of Juan de Fuca and, across the water, Vancouver Island. It is a working harbour town of some nineteen thousand people, with a long curved sandspit called Ediz Hook sheltering the port, a ferry that sails daily to Victoria in British Columbia, and a downtown of brick storefronts, bookshops and seafood spots. It is also the main gateway to Olympic National Park, which means it has what the rest of the peninsula lacks: choice.
Read the complete Port Angeles write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 257 km into the recorded legs you reach Port Angeles. Next is Lake Crescent.
Lake Crescent is the kind of lake that makes you slow down without being asked. It fills a deep glacial trough in the north of Olympic National Park, roughly six hundred feet at its deepest, and the water is so clear and blue that on a calm day it looks lit from below. Steep forested ridges drop straight into it, with Storm King rising above the south shore. Port Angeles lies about twenty-seven kilometres east, and that is where you find fuel and a proper meal.
Read the complete Lake Crescent write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lake Crescent, about halfway. Next is Forks.
Forks is a logging town on the western side of the Olympic Peninsula, a place of about three and a half thousand people, set on a plateau between the mountains and the Pacific. It sits in one of the wettest places in the lower forty-eight states, with rainfall that often reaches three metres a year, and the forest around it is a dripping, mossy world of Sitka spruce, western hemlock and Douglas fir. The town has lived off timber for most of its history, and a small museum near the visitor centre tells the story of the loggers, the fires and the mills.
Read the complete Forks write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Forks sits at 230 km, about halfway. Next is Ruby Beach.
Ruby Beach is where the Olympic Peninsula puts its raw side on show. A short, steep trail leads down from the highway through spruce and fern to a wide shore of dark pebbles, strewn with enormous bleached driftwood logs, with tall sea stacks standing offshore and a creek spilling out across the stones. The name comes from the pinkish tint in the sand, said to be caused by tiny garnet crystals, and when the sun hits wet pebbles the colour is genuinely warm. In the distance, Destruction Island and its old lighthouse, built in the 1890s, sit on the horizon like a model.
Read the complete Ruby Beach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ruby Beach comes up about 393 km into the recorded legs. Next is Aberdeen Washington.
Aberdeen, Washington, is a gritty harbour town on the grey, rain-soaked edge of the continent, and it is not trying to impress anyone. It sits at the head of Grays Harbor, where the Chehalis and Wishkah rivers empty into a broad, shallow bay, and its fortunes have always followed the timber. In the early twentieth century this was one of the biggest lumber ports in the world, with dozens of mills, and the old waterfront still shows traces of that heyday: wooden pilings, rusty gantries and brick storefronts that have seen better decades. Rain falls here for much of the year, more than two metres of it, and everything wears a coat of moss.
Read the complete Aberdeen Washington write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 523 km into the recorded legs you reach Aberdeen Washington. Next is Olympia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Olympia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Olympia. That is the ride.
Olympia → Hurricane Ridge is 222 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Hurricane Ridge → Port Angeles is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Port Angeles → Lake Crescent is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lake Crescent → Forks is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forks → Ruby Beach is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ruby Beach → Aberdeen Washington is 130 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Aberdeen Washington → Olympia is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.