Hi all,
I took my son (age 12.5) to the Seattle area mid-July for 8 days/8 nights. Despite this being a fairly last-minute trip, it all worked out and went smoothly! Thank you to those who answered my questions and gave advice. One of the best advice I got was from Gardyloo on Mt Rainier - he suggested I visit it at the tail end because of remaining snow/ wildflower blooms. This was certainly something I wouldn't have considered.

My son has never been to the PNW; I have only gone to Seattle once, 30 years ago, on a short trip to visit my then-roommate who was from Seattle.

Why Seattle/Washington State?
TBH, I hadn't planned on taking this trip this summer; in fact I know v little about this whole area up until 2 months ago. Back in March i found out Seattle Art Museum is opening an Ai Wei Wei retrospective (largest in the US ever), and I really wanted to see it. Lo and behold, my son has a 10-day gap between summer camps, JetBlue had flights for $350pp, and I have $270 credit in my JetBlue travel bank which would expire in September. Tickets were booked in late March, but we went to Japan in April, so it wasn't until late May after asking lots of Qs, reading guidebooks/relevant websites/ reading TRs, before I finalized our itinerary. Even though we wanted to spend more time in Seattle, I decided that we should take advantage of summer weather to visit the National Parks; we can always return to Seattle in other times of the year. By Late May, lodging options near/in the parks were quite limited.

Our itinerary
Seattle - 2 nights at Hilton Airport Hotel
Port Angeles - 1 night at Olympic Lodge by Ayers
Forks - 2 nights at Dew Drop Inn
Quinault - 1 night at Lake Quinault Lodge
Packwood - 1 night at Packwood Lodge
Paradise - 1 night at Paradise Inn

our driving route: total 826 miles
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/ed...123.084075&z=8

Yes, there is a lot of moving around! But given how big the area is, if we don't keep moving, we will end up spending a lot of time backtracking. We went counterclockwise on HWY 101 around the Olympic Peninsula.

Apps I downloaded (besides airline, hotel, rental car company apps)
SoundTransit for Seatle
National Park Service
Washington Trails Association - this app is a godsend for hikes. So much information from whether there is a toilet at the trailhead, to where to park, to reading TRs which gives insight on current trail conditions.

Special items we packed (we each took a backpack and a carryon suitcase; we did laundry once on the trip)
freezer packs (yes, you can take them in carryon if they are frozen)
insulated lunch bag
trekking poles (yes TSA now allows them in carryon)
high-top hiking boots
Camelbak water reservoir
dry bag, waterproof cellphone pouch, gloves (for kayaking)
sun protection

July 10, Day 0, aka I hate JetBlue
We took the evening nonstop flight out of BOS, scheduled to arrive at SeaTac at 10pm. I decided it would make more sense for us to stay near the airport with easy access to the Light Rail, so that we don't have to venture into the city late on our arrival, plus we were going to pick up our rental car from SeaTac later. Our flight departed and touched down on time, BUT, there was no open gate for our plane. I think JetBlue only has 1 gate at SeaTac, so if that gate is occupied (due to whatever reason), you are SOL. That evening, the JetBlue plane at our gate had mechanical issues. We touched down at 9:55pm and we sat on the tarmac for another 1 hr 45 minutes before we finally were able to deplane. I was surprised there wasn't a riot on our plane. My complain email to JetBlue yielded a non-apology.

By then, I was super glad we were staying at an airport hotel. Somehow I thought the Hilton is attached to the airport, so I was all confused when we were in the terminal and I saw zero signs pointing us to the Hilton. After asking the airport staff, they sent us to the airport shuttle area, and I'm like, NO the hotel is supposed to be walking distance! But right there is the Hilton shuttle so we got on. It literally drove around the block and dropped us off. Turns out the Hilton is not attached to the airport, but rather across the street from the airport garage & Light Rail Station, so yes it is walkable if you know which way to walk. It was midnight and I was just glad we were finally at the hotel.

There was some mishap at check-in as our assigned room was next to a frat party, so we requested a different one and got an ADA courtyard view room with 2 double beds instead. We honestly didn't care at that point as we just wanted a quiet room so we can go to sleep right away.

~ End of Day 0 ~

July 11, Day 1, Seattle

We didn't go to bed until 1am the night before due to the JetBlue fiasco, and I know my son needs his sleep. Luckily he was a good sport and didn't complain much when I woke up him at 8am. I have Hilton Honors Gold which gives us a $15pp dining credit, so we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. On this Fri morning the only option is their breakfast buffet ($26), luckily my son still qualifies for the kid's rate ($10). Nice spread and I thought $26 is pretty reasonable for hotel buffet breakfast.

Besides being a Hilton member, I picked this hotel because of its proximity to the Light Rail station. It is literally across the street, a 5-min walk max. Line 1 runs every 10 minutes (wish we have this back home in our Boston suburb) and takes 40 minutes to get to downtown. i used the Sound Transit app to buy my day ticket ($6). Kids ride free. The light rail is modern, clean and quiet. (yes, again wishing our commuter rail were like this)

We got off at Symphony and walked over to the Seattle Art Museum just after 10am, its opening time. Ai Wei Wei exhibition is extra ($32.99; child 14 & under free). You can read the NYT Review here; I won't go into details of it, but I'm glad I got to see it. We spent around 90 minutes in the exhibition - I could have spent more time as there were a bunch of videos I didn't watch, but my patient son had enough, and we still had plenty on our to-do list.

Did I say it was an absolutely stunning day weather-wise? sunny in the 70s, not a cloud in the sky. We walked from SAM to Pike Place Market, arriving just at 12noon. It's Friday and the place was hopping with tourists (and maybe some locals too?). Lines were long for some eateries, esp ones that serve seafood, but also that cheese shop that's across the street. It must be on some viral IG cuz the line was out the door wrapping around the corner. The original Starbucks also had a long line. We looked at several of the fresh seafood stalls, and lots of stalls selling rainier cherries, and OMG fresh flowers! The flower bouquets are so cheap ($20 for a huge one). If we were staying put in one place I definitely would have bought a bouquet.

Our friends were in Seattle last year and they told us about the crepe place inside Pike Place, so we went there for lunch as my son LOVES crepes, and there was no line. We shared a savory caprese crepe and a sweet, seasonal fresh peaches crepe ($50). Then we bought some rainier cherries from the stall so we can have fresh fruit for the next few days.

From Pike Place we walked north to the Olympic Sculpture Park. I had read that Ai Wei Wei's zodiac heads are on view there. (The Asian Art Museum also simultaneously have his lego masterpieces on view). We couldn't find the zodiac heads, and turns out there was a delay in the installation and they won't be there until november 2025 Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the view of the Olympic mountains from the sculpture park.

Next we walked over to the Space Needle. I bought the combo ticket (Space Needle + chihuly) from one of the self-service machines ($140 for 2; $5 off for youth). It was 2:15pm and our entry time was 2:25pm. Oy! We stood in line for close to an hour before our turn to go up! I guess it's such a beautiful day (and a Friday) so everyone had the same idea. It was still worth the trip though, as it was such a clear day that we had a nice view of everything including Mount Rainier. We only spent 45 minutes on top, and when we saw the line for the down elevator, we opted to take the stairs instead. To take the stairs, you have to be 8+, sign a waiver, and can't be wearing "open-toed shoes." I was wearing Merrell sandals with straps, but they let me through.

Not long into the descent I was regretting our decision! 800 steps down and I was getting dizzy. Eventually we made it down, and to our BIG SURPRISE, a few flights before you reach the ground, you get to take a free "I made it down to Earth" t-shirt! That was certainly a pleasant surprise.

Our final stop was Chihuly Garden and Glass right next door. If it were just me, I would have skipped it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy his work, but it was also very 2000s. Back in the 2000s there were Chihuly exhibits everywhere and I have been to so many that I have seen his entire oeuvre many times over. So nothing in this museum is new to me, but I thought my son would enjoy it, and he did. The museum isn't big and we were done in 30 minutes, but just as we were leaving, they have a glassblowing demonstration so we stayed and watched for half hour.

From there, we took the iconic Monorail ($4 adult, $2 child, one-way) to Westlake station. By then it was almost 6pm so we looked for a place to have dinner. I have my heart set on seafood so we ended up going to Pike Place Chowder inside Pacific Place. Pacific Place itself is really sad - once likely a high-end mall, now almost 90% empty storefront, plus a few eateries and an AMC theater. My son opted for a big bowl of Manhattan style clam chowder; I got connecticut style dungeness crab roll (1/4lb). Dinner was $67. We wanted some dessert so we walked over to Gelatiamo on Third Ave and shared a gelato ($10). From there we headed back to Symphony (not before posing a photo in front of Seattle Symphony Hall), took the light rail back to our Hilton, getting in at 8pm.

It was a long day (9a-8p) but I think we got a lot done? While staying at the airport isn't ideal, it worked out pretty well for us this time. We walked around a lot, soaked up the nice weather and nice views. The area between Pike Place & the sculpture park - Belltown I think? - looks really nice and I thought would be a great place to live.

I know there is a lot more in Seattle that we didn't get to; we did what we could, and I'm looking forward to a future visit where we can focus on the city and the surrounding islands!

~ End of Day 1 ~

Pretty crowded inside Pike Place at noon on a Friday

Resting our legs and enjoying the view at Olympic Sculpture Garden

View of Mt Rainier from Space Needle

Inside Chihuly museum

Manhattan clam chowder and CT-style Dungeness crab roll

Underneath the north end of the big bridge for 99, is a world famous troll. The troll is not too far from the world HQ of geocaching "AKA GROUNDSPEAK". Also in this north side of Seattle is a place known as "The Center of the Universe". Near the campus of the University of Washington there is an interesting arboretum. Having been a geocacher for nearly 20 years, I've been to HQ a couple times.

Nice report on Seattle! It's so fun to read about my chosen home city, how it looks through the eyes of visitors. Thank you. suze, seattle

Great photos and a jam packed day!

Brava as always, yk!

Thank you for the comments!

suze I have your long list of Seattle sights you recommend! Hope we can make it back not too far off in the future (and definitely in <30 years!)

July 12, Day 2 - Hurricane Ridge & Port Angeles

Today we leave Seattle and head over to Olympic National Park

We went down to breakfast again this morning at the Airport Hilton. Today being Saturday, they offer a la carte menu in addition to the buffet. Since my son qualifies for the child's buffet price of $10, it's a better deal for us to get the buffet. Afterwards we checked out, but just missed the hotel shuttle (runs every 20 minutes) that takes us back to the airport. Their shuttle only goes to the airport terminal; whereas the rental car facility is a completely separate building a mile away. I decided we will just uber to the rental car directly. It took like 7 minutes and cost $10. Otherwise, we would need to wait 20 minutes for the next hotel shuttle, go to the airport terminal, change for the airport rental car shuttle to the rental car facility. It would take a minimum of 40 minutes that way.

On this Saturday morning I did not see a line at Hertz, but with President's Circle status, we could go straight to the car and pick whichever one we want. This took the longest time lol because my son and I debated on which car to take. I wanted to get a Subaru Legacy sedan (which I drive back home) but he wanted an SUV. We compromised with a Buick Encore, a subcompact SUV, which I've driven last time we rented from Hertz. Finally at 9:30am we were on our way to Hurricane Ridge.

Traffic was light and we arrived at Hurricane Ridge entrance in <3hrs, and then sat there for 30 minutes due to metered admission. Finally we made it to Hurricane Ridge Visitors Center parking lot by around 1:15pm.

(I have looked into taking the Hurricane Ridge Shuttle option from Port Angeles - the bus gets to skip all the traffic - unfortunately the shuttle only goes to the VC parking lot but not the Hurricane Hill trailhead. The trailhead is another 1.5 miles up the road. Anyway, the shuttle is a good choice for folks who want to visit the VC and hike the trails by the VC, but won't work for people who want to hike the Hurricane Hill trail.)

The visitors center is a temporary one - the original one was burned down 2 years ago. We got our stamp, picked up junior ranger activity booklet, used the restrooms, then back into our car to drive further up the road to the Hurricane Hill trailhead parking lot. There are picnic tables by the lot where we ate lunch, then off to hike the Hurricane Hill trail (3.2 miles r/t, 650 ft elev gain). At the peak you get a nice view of the surrounding Olympic mountains. Then we headed back to Port Angeles to check in at our hotel, the Olympic Lodge by Ayers. It's probably the nicest hotel in PA and I'm glad we splurged a bit to stay there for one night, as our accommodations go downhill from here.

We got dinner recommendations from front desk and headed to Downriggers. We managed to arrive just before the dinner rush and were seated fairly quickly. I got their crab louie salad - topped with a decent heap of dungeness crab. My son got a burger 🙄 Dinner was $72

Downstairs from Downriggers is a New Zealand-style ice cream shop called Welly's - it's hard-packed ice cream blended with fresh fruit and comes out like soft serve. We shared one ($6.50 + tip). We ate our ice cream by the waterfront - it was a clear day and we were able to see Mt Baker, some 90 miles away.

Before returning to our hotel, we stopped by Safeway to pick up food provisions for the next days

~ End of Day 2 ~

View of the Olympic mountains from hurricane hill trail

Saw a couple of deer

Crab Louie salad

Great photos. Nice looking salad and spectacular views.

July 13, Day 3 - Crescent Lake, Sol Duc

Time to bid farewell to Port Angeles. We were only in the town for a brief overnight; the town center seems pretty cute (our hotel is located a mile away), and PA is also where you can take the ferry over to Victoria, BC - something I'd like to do on future visits. Our hotel provides free breakfast, though the selection is quite limited.

We quickly stopped at Walgreens in PA to pick up some bug spray, then continued counterclockwise on HWY 101. If you recall from my map, most of ONP accessible sights are out-and-back off-shoots from Hwy 101, which skirts the periphery of the park. Our next stop, 30-mins away, is Lake Crescent. The stretch of 101 that passes along the lake is quite scenic. We arrived at the Lake Crescent lodge around 9:30am to rent kayak ($45 for 4 hrs).

At that hour (it's a Sunday), the lake/beachfront hasn't gotten busy yet, but there are a handful of motorboats going around, some with waterskiers. I had envisioned a peaceful & tranquil kayaking experience like what we had last summer at Jackson Lake in the Tetons, but this was anything but. While the motorboats aren't right next to us, their constant comings and goings cause enough wake to make me uneasy, not to mention the unrelenting noise from their motors. The scenery also pales in comparison to the Tetons. As a result, we only went out for an hour even though the rental was for 4 hours (minimum).

We then grabbed our picnic lunch from the car and ate on the beach. We studied the area map and decided to do a combined Moments in Time loop and Marymere Falls hike (~ 2.5 miles total; 500 ft elev gain), the trailhead is right where we were, therefore saving us from moving our car. The former has old-growth forests and the latter is a water fall... which isn't particularly impressive at this time of year. By the time we returned from our hike in the early afternoon, the beach was very busy with holiday makers.

Next we continued to Sol Duc Falls trailhead. We didn't have high expectations for this, after seeing Marymere Falls, but Sol Duc Falls is much better and very scenic (1.8 miles; 200 ft elev gain). When we were there, there were 3 channels, but during rainy season, it goes up to 4 channels cascading down the cliff.

From Sol Duc Falls, we back track to Hwy 101 and continue westward (~ 1hr) to our destination for the next 2 nights - Forks. Some of you may recognize Forks' fame as the home of Twilight, but that barely registered with us. It is also the rainiest town in the lower 48 (10 feet of rain/yr!) Well we wouldn't know because it definitely didn't rain during our 48 hours there.

Lodging options in Forks is pretty limited; we stayed at Dew Drop Inn, in their "Bella suite" which again, is lost on us, lol. I believe it is priced higher than their regular rooms even though it's basically the same except for Twilight-inspired decor/furnishings, so that's probably why it was still available when I looked (and the only room available that has 2 beds). That evening we walked across Hwy 101 to Pacific Pizza for dinner (personal pizza for my son; spinach salad for me; $20 total), and then Forks Outfitters next door to get food provisions ($60) for next 2 days (Breakfast & lunch)

~ End of Day 3 ~

Kayaking on lake Cresent

Hiking to Marymere falls

A not very impressive Marymere falls

3 channels cascading down at Sol Duc Falls

July 14, Day 4 - Chillin' at the Beaches & Forks

Another day, another early-ish start. The Dew Drop Inn has a microwave, so we made instant oatmeal for breakfast in our room. Then it's off to Second Beach in the La Push area (20-min drive). Second Beach is known for its sea stacks, and at low tides, its abundant marine life in the tide pools. Our trip schedule coincided with a -1.5' low tide at 9:15am. We arrived at the parking lot at 8:45am and grabbed the last spot (there is a large overflow lot nearby), then hiked the 0.8 mile trail down to the beach.

When we got down there, the view is simply stunning. You see the sea stacks among the sea mist, the effect is eerie but breathtaking. And then we walked way way way out onto the beach, nothing could prepare me for the sight. There are hundreds of thousands of mussels, barnacles and other bivalve organisms along the rocks, and then there are literally thousands and thousands of green anemone, as well as sea stars in bright purple, dark purple, bright orange, dark orange. Some are as big as 10 inches across. I have never, ever seen anything like this. I don't think we would be able to see as much if it weren't a negative low tide that morning.

We were so mesmerized that we ended up spending 2 hours wandering around on the beach. Of course by then the tide had risen up quite a bit so late comers can no longer go nearly as far out to the tide pools.

Since the tide is coming in, there is no point to visit another beach at this time, so we returned to our hotel and ate our picnic sandwich lunch in our room. One nice thing about our room is that it is spacious - it even has a couch and coffee table so we can actually sit and enjoy our food like civilized people.

I have kept our afternoon free - free in a sense that we needed to do laundry as this is approximately half-way into our trip. IME, doing laundry on trips is rather time-consuming. In our recent trip to Japan, it took hours to do a load of laundry as the machines take forever. Our hotel doesn't have laundry room, but there is a laundromat right next door, so we headed over. Well, turns out commercial laundromats are super efficient! 23 mins to wash ($6.25), 16 minutes ($1) to dry and voila, you have clean clothes again in under an hour.

I had not expected this efficiency! It's only 1pm and our laundry is done and we have nothing planned! I searched on line to see what else there's to do besides beaches, and stumbled upon John's Beachcombing Museum. I mentioned it to my son and he was like," yeah, I saw the sign for the museum earlier on our way to the beach." We were a bit skeptical but decided to give it a go, but not before taking a siesta. You see, we have been going and going nonstop for 3 days, getting up early and going to bed late, so we both craved a bit of a downtime.

2 hours later we headed to John's Beachcombing Museum, and WOW, it's not a place you'll forget easily. If you search online, you'll find a number of news interview articles about him and his museum. It is jaw-dropping to see how much he collected from the beaches in the 40+ years. There are definitely some unique treasures inside (marked by a pink star), but also other unusual as well as mundane items. It's the sheer number of items - both in quantity and in variety - that blows your mind. There are items from container spills, like Yeti containers, or nike sneakers, walls and walls of japanese suntory whiskey bottles, dozens and dozens of glass buoys, and of course, tens of thousands of plastic items. There is even a section of items from the Japanese tsunami. John himself is there to answer any questions you might have, and he's got stories to tell! Outside the museum he has several buoy sculptures - made from thousands and thousands of plastic buoys he had collected - the sculptures are 20-30 ft tall. We spent a whole hour there though most people finished faster.

Originally I had planned for us to eat an early dinner, then head to Rialto Beach, known for sunset & "hole in the wall." The problem is, both sunset and low tide weren't until after 9pm, and I just don't think we want to stay up that late, given that we have , yes, another early start the next day. So I gave up the idea of Rialto Beach completely. Instead, I suggested we go check out First Beach (it was around 4pm when we finished at the museum) and have dinner nearby.

There isn't anything especially interesting at First Beach besides driftwood, but the beach is easily accessible from the parking lot. My son decided it's fun to run from the tide and entertained himself for quite some time. I spotted a number of seals bobbing up and down not far from the beach. Our dinner that evening was at River's Edge next door. Both First Beach and the surrounding area, including the restaurant, is inside the Quileute Nation. Quileute nation also runs a resort there, and River's Edge is really the only restaurant within miles. Luckily we arrived before 6pm and only had a short wait for a table. Folks who arrived just after us had a much longer wait. We were seated at a 6-top shared with a younger couple. Much to my son's horror, I struck up a conversation with our table-mates. They are from Southern CA, got a one-way rental car and drove along the coast all the way to Seattle, which is where they are heading next, before flying back home.

Anyway, my son and I shared a large bowl of clam chowder, and an entree of 8oz steak with veggies and potatoes. The food was really delicious. Dinner was $56 (there is no food tax on the bill)

~ End of Day 4 ~

P.S. In retrospect, if I had known laundry would only take 1 hr, I could have squeezed in a trip to Cape Flattery for the afternoon, as I heard that the scenery there is spectacular, not to mention also visiting the northwesternmost point of the US. But doing so would mean missing John's Beachcombing Museum. Anyway, I was glad we had some downtime today as the rest of the trip was back to full speed

Sea mist and sea stacks in the distance at Second Beach, Olympic NP

The 2 closest rocks are reachable at negative low tide

Second beach

Everywhere you look there are sea stars and mussels and barnacles exposed during low tide

Lots of anemones too

So many of them around the base of the 2 rocky outcroppings

Inside of John's Beachcombing museum. Every single item came from a beach

Outdoor plastic buoy sculpture, just one of several

Loving your TR, we went to Seattle a couple of years ago and so I walked along with you from place to place. You walked a lot! Seattle is so beautiful in the sunshine but it is so-o expensive. Every museum / attraction is $35 or more. We went to the Chihuly at like 4PM because it was $10 cheaper. My joke was how much does a $20 bill cost on Seattle...answer, $30! We are heading to the PNW in 3 weeks so I'm looking forward to reading all of your report.

Tdiddy12 Oh, where will you be this time in PNW? Have a wonderful time.
and yes, I was a bit shocked by the high prices in Seattle, but then I also realize we are tourists and were spending 100% of our time in the most touristy part of the city. I'm sure if we ventured a couple of blocks out, there must be cheaper options, but we only had 1 day. We are from Boston so it's kind of like eating a lobster roll at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market, going to the Museum of Fine Arts, eating a Fenway Frank at Fenway Park, basically the touristy stuff. As a resident, I certainly hope tourists are spending their money in my city/state.
I did look into the Seattle City Pass, which might have saved me a couple of bucks, but since my son gets into Seattle Art Museum for free, a child City Pass would not make sense for him. It is nice that SAM is free for youths, and so is the entire network of Sound Transit. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston used to be free for kids <17 but no longer (there is a youth admission rate), and Boston mass transit also isn't free for kids <12.

July 15, Day 5, Hoh, Ruby Beach, Quinault

After 2 nights in Forks, it's time to pack and move. Another attempt to leave early failed; we started driving at 8:20am; the trip to Hoh Rainforest takes about 1 hour. Once again we found a line of cars stuck at the Hoh Entrance station. At 9:20am they are already doing metered admission; we waited about 20 minutes before our turn. I was really stunned by how big the parking areas are at Hoh RF, and how many cars already there. There are 2 short trails and 1 long trail at Hoh; the 2 short ones take < 1 hour whereas the long one is out-and-back for 18 miles, but one can turn back at any point.

We first went to Hall of Mosses trail, the most famous 0.8 mile loop. Lots of old grove forests plus big-leaf maples that are covered in mosses. Many shades of green. Looks like jurassic park. We finished around 10:45am and went inside the visitors center to see the exhibit, as we wanted to join the 11am ranger talk right at the VC. The ranger talk was very informative, as usual, learned a lot about the 4 main types of trees, the inter-connection between the trees via the fungi underground, the landscape, the river valleys, etc etc.

Then we went back inside the VC so my son could get his Junior Ranger badge (one of the required activities was attending a ranger program), then to our car to get our picnic lunch and ate at a picnic table nearby. Next is the other short trail, Spruce Nature Trail (1.2 miles). By the time we finished, it was 1pm. We left to continue on Hwy 101 counterclockwise to Ruby Beach (1 hr drive). Arriving at 2pm means halfway between low and high tide, so for us, it's mostly seeing the huge amount of driftwood on the beach, which requires some climbing over in order to get to the water. Even at mid-afternoon, a layer of sea mist still lingers. Surprisingly, despite this being the third beach we visited in 2 days, we still managed to spend about an hour walking around, leaving at 3pm. Then it's another 1-hr drive on Hwy 101 to Lake Quinault Lodge, our destination for the night.

I'll admit that when I was looking for accommodations for Lake Quinault, I didn't really look anywhere else but the Lodge, which was the priciest place we stayed on this trip. Perhaps I thought this was the only option in that area, but in fact, there are several cheaper options nearby. I didn't regret staying at the Lodge, because it is so beautiful! There are some good and not so great about the Lodge, which I reviewed on Tripadvisor and will link it at end of this TR. Anyway, we checked into our room, but we didn't have much time to do anything else because I had booked us on the 5pm Lake Quinault Evening Boat Tour. The Lodge (aka Aramark) organizes 2 tours: an evening boat tour and a morning rainforest bus tour. i learned about them while reading reviews of the Lodge. When I tried to book the RF tour, it was not available, so I went ahead and booked the boat tour. A couple of weeks later when I looked again, the RF became available so I booked that too, and didn't cancel the boat tour.

Anyway, the boat tour was nice and relaxing; it's a small pontoon boat that seats maybe 16 people? Our group had 8 I think, very comfortable seats and they provided binoculars. We didn't see much wildlife, though our boat captain/guide was friendly and knowledgable and gave us lots of background info on the area, the Quinault tribe, the geography, the history of the lodge etc. I thought the boat tour was 2 hours but we finished within 1:45. I had made dinner reservation at the Lodge's Roosevelt Dining Room for 8pm but it was only 6:30pm then. I asked at the hostess desk and they were able to seat us for dinner right away, which was great, except the dining room (the entire lodge actually) doesn't have a/c and we were having a heat wave, so the dining room was hot and stuffy.

I had looked at the menu back home before the trip, so I was prepared for sticker shock. Our boat guide recommended the salmon, as it is local, so I got that (v good). My son ended up ordering the mac & cheese from the kids menu, with add-on chicken. Dinner was $83. It was too pricey and too hot to eat dessert in the restaurant, so we crossed the street to Quinault Mercantile to see what they have (for breakfast the next day, fruit, dessert etc). The shelves were pretty sparse. We got some packaged danish (no doubt full of preservatives and trans fat) and yogurt for breakfast, an apple for fruit, and 2 hagen daz ice cream bars for dessert. Ate our ice cream on the Adirondack chairs back on the lawn at the lodge, facing the lake.

The lodge has its own little beach, and overall it's far more peaceful than lake crescent where we were just a few days prior. The Quinault tribe owns the lake and doesn't allow motorboats by non-tribe members (except for the once-daily tour boat). We went back to explore the lodge a bit before returning to the beach for sunset.

~ End of Day 5 ~

Photos don't do justice at Hoh RF

Lots of mosses

Tons of driftwood at Ruby Beach

View of Lake Quinault from the grounds at the Lodge

My King salmon dinner

Sunset by the beach at Lake Quinault Lodge

Thanks for taking the time to report on your trip. We live about two hours south of Forks, WA, so have been in the area you traveled numerous times. In all our times being at or near the Lake Quinault Lodge area, we never heard about the lake tours. The morning tour sounds great to us and we will try to get reservations sometime in September, when there might be fewer people. Your trip reports are very helpful - even to people like us who live nearby! (Can't believe we've never heard about these lake tours!) Thanks again!