The One Where the Swanks Took on Olympic National Park
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for June 28, 2026
Our family vacation started at the northern edge of Washington, exploring Olympic National Park, tucked into the most northwestern corner of the contiguous United States. We kicked things off at Hurricane Ridge, where the views were incredible, the family looked great, and I immediately began calculating how many scenic overlooks a middle-aged man can survive before requesting a chairlift. It was the perfect start to six days of mountains, ocean, rain forests, waterfalls, and me pretending I was physically prepared for any of it.
There was a lot more hiking on this vacation than I expected. Somehow “family trip to a national park” quietly turned into “four to five miles a day, enjoy your new lifestyle.” I struggled with it more than I wanted to admit, but Luke was absolutely built for it. He and Miss Sheri even climbed all the way to the top of Sunset Point while I made a strong early campaign, assessed my aging infrastructure, and wisely withdrew before the summit. It’s tough getting old, but it’s pretty awesome watching your kids pass you like you’re standing still.
While trying to catch up with Luke and Sheri, I stopped on the trail to rest when three deer suddenly walked right up near me. They didn’t seem scared at all, probably because in a national park humans are less “predator” and more “slow-moving camera holders.” I stood there snapping pictures while they calmly passed by, pretending it was a spiritual moment and not just proof I had finally moved slow enough for wildlife to trust me.
We also spotted this large marmot not far off the path, basically looking like a fat beaver who had retired from dam work and moved into mountain real estate. He seemed just as curious about us as we were about him, although he never stopped eating grass long enough to make it feel personal. He’d look up, chew, judge us briefly, then go right back to lunch. Honestly, I respect that kind of focus.
We had another great deer encounter on the drive up the mountain when this mama and her baby were hanging out on the side of the road. You’d think with an entire national park available, they could find a safer place than “next to moving vehicles,” but apparently they also understand tourism. We were just glad they made themselves available for our viewing pleasure before returning to their busy schedule of being adorable and wildly unconcerned.
Mountains in the morning, ocean in the afternoon. That’s a pretty solid day. We went whale watching on the Strait of Juan de Fuca expecting orcas, but the humpbacks apparently didn’t get that memo. For four hours they were popping up in every direction like the world’s largest game of Whack-a-Mole. Our naturalist said she counted at least 35 different whales, although a few of them were clearly attention whales who just kept coming back for more stage time. It was an absolutely whale of a day.
Day two brought us to Lake Crescent, a glacier-carved lake with water so blue and clear it almost looks fake. The blue is ridiculous because the lake has very few nutrients, which means not much algae grows in it, so the water stays crazy clear. It’s more than 600 feet deep, which is comforting if you enjoy standing near beautiful things that could easily hide a submarine. Lake Crescent is also home to its own unique trout, because apparently even the fish here needed to be more interesting than the rest of us. The whole place feels calm, clean, and slightly unfair to every other lake trying to compete.
Olympic National Park is pretty isolated, which is beautiful right up until you realize nature has not installed enough businesses to service our every whim. Thankfully, we found a nice resort on Lake Crescent that was happy to let us wander around and enjoy the amenities like civilized people pretending we belonged there. We were tempted to rent kayaks, but ultimately decided against it, which I fully supported. My legs had already filed a formal complaint for the week, and I didn’t need to start lying to myself that my arms were ready to become above-average employees.
After enjoying Lake Crescent, we had seen enough water just sitting there, so we went looking for some water with ambition. That led us to the hike toward Marymere Falls, because nothing says vacation like leaving a perfectly beautiful lake to go watch part of it throw itself down a mountain. The trail was gorgeous, winding through giant trees, mossy rocks, little bridges, and the kind of forest that makes you understand why people suddenly start using words like “peaceful” without irony.
Marymere Falls is one of the most popular hikes near Lake Crescent, mostly because it’s less than a mile each way and leads through old-growth forest to a 90-foot waterfall. The trail crosses Barnes Creek and Falls Creek before the final climb, which is where the brochure’s definition of “easy” and my definition of “why are we still going up?” had a brief disagreement. I’ll admit, I was a little underwhelmed at first and mildly annoyed that the waterfall made me climb a steep incline to earn the view. But I do like falling water, and once we got there, it was hard to stay mad at a mountain for doing something pretty.
After lunch we decided the only logical next step was to go find another waterfall, because that’s what brothers do. Some families throw a football around. Ours apparently hikes into the forest to admire water with commitment.
Sol Duc Falls was one of the cooler stops in Olympic National Park. The trail winds through old-growth forest before the water drops about 50 feet into a narrow canyon, which is beautiful in the way nature gets when it wants to impress you and remind you it can still win. I watched several people climb way too close to the edge, which made me nervous and sent my brain into the healthy vacation question of, “How often do people actually go over?” Then I remembered I was on a family vacation and probably shouldn’t spend too much time mentally producing a National Park disaster documentary. Great waterfall, though.
On day three, we got up early and made the drive to the Hoh Rain Forest, which is basically what happens when trees stop trimming their moss and fully commit to the lifestyle. The whole place feels prehistoric, magical, and just damp enough that you understand why the Twilight vampires were always brooding nearby. We had been tipped off to arrive early, so for once we listened to vacation advice instead of assuming we knew better. Smart move. When we left, there was a huge line of cars waiting to get in, which gave us that rare and beautiful feeling of being the people who planned correctly.
I did the Hall of Mosses Trail, but skipped the Spruce Trail because apparently my body has very strong opinions about how many enchanted forest walks should happen in one day. I do regret missing this giant tree stump, because it looks incredible and exactly like the kind of thing I would have pretended to fully understand while taking 47 pictures of it. But while they were out discovering ancient forest magic, I was back at the visitor center enjoying a bench, which honestly had a lot going for it. It was sturdy, quiet, and most importantly, not another trail.
The boys are lucky they have at least one parent who can keep up with them. Miss Sheri has always been pretty rugged, the kind of person you’d want nearby if you got lost in a rain forest. She’d stay calm, find the trail, ration the snacks, and somehow make it feel like a team-building exercise. I, on the other hand, would be waving down the first bear I saw like, “Good news, I’m slow and emotionally ready.
When we got back to the Sol Duc Falls parking lot, we ran into this Steller’s jay hanging around like he owned the place. I thought he looked beautiful, so naturally I chased him around with my camera like a completely normal adult man who had already spent the day photographing water, trees, and suspiciously confident wildlife. He finally gave me a decent pose, probably out of pity. Not a bad way to end a waterfall hike.
After the rain forest, we drove to Ruby Beach to see the sea stacks and tide pools. We even planned around low tide, because apparently we are now the kind of people who coordinate vacation activities with the moon. The sea stacks were incredible, and we did our best climbing around the rocks to find whatever tide pools we could reach without needing a rescue team. It was a very cool place to explore, although calling it a “beach” in June felt a little generous. In my mind, beaches come with sunshine, warmth, and a strong chance of complaining about sand. Ruby Beach came with sweatshirts, ocean wind, and the Pacific Northwest reminding us not to get too comfortable.
Ruby Beach looks less like a normal beach and more like a lumberyard lost a fight with the Pacific Ocean. All that driftwood gets carried down from the forests by rivers, then the tides and storms shove it back on shore in giant piles like the ocean is redecorating. It gives the whole place this wild, rugged feel you don’t get at beaches where the biggest hazard is someone’s Bluetooth speaker. It’s beautiful, a little chaotic, and a good reminder that when the ocean is done with a tree, it just throws it on shore like, “You deal with this.”
Miss Sheri asked me to pose for a classic “Shortarmguy Shot” on the beach, because apparently every scenic location needs at least one photo of me throwing my arms in the air like I just discovered tourism. I was thrilled when Abby suddenly jumped into the shot with me. She’s been a Swank for less than a year, but moments like this make me think she’s really starting to fit in with the family. Either that, or she’s already learned that when we embarrass ourselves, we prefer to do it together.
On Thursday we took the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, British Columbia, which gave us the exciting chance to use our passports and briefly feel like international travelers. There’s something fun about crossing water into another country, even if my dreams of struggling through a foreign language were immediately crushed when everyone spoke English. Still, Victoria was beautiful, the harbor was impressive, and for a few hours we got to pretend we were much more worldly than we actually are.
We stopped for lunch at The Flying Otter on the harbor, because when you’re visiting Canada near the water, fish and chips feels less like a choice and more like a civic duty. The food was good, the view was better, and the whole place had that nice vacation-lunch feeling where nobody is in a hurry and everyone pretends fried food is part of the cultural experience.
On our way out of town, we stopped at Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, which turned out to be way more fun than expected. Llamas, elk, zebras, bears, and other critters came right up to the car, and several grizzlies were separated from us by what felt like a couple of very optimistic fences. They sold special animal bread for $5 a loaf, so naturally we started with two and ended up going through six, because apparently our family’s wildlife strategy is handing carbs to anything with hooves and hoping the bears respect boundaries.
The employee told us nothing would bite, which was comforting right up until a buffalo shoved half his head through the window like he had a dinner reservation in our car. They were powerful, pushy, and completely shameless about using those giant tongues to retrieve every last piece of bread. I’m not saying things got inappropriate, but after feeding one of these guys, I felt I needed a cigarette and a quiet moment to myself.
@toddswank Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, Washington lets you feed bread to grizzly bears! #bears #grizzlies #brownbear #sequim ♬ original sound - Martin dutch
@toddswank Incredible experience in Port Angeles, Washington watching humpback whales! #humpback #whales #portangeles #pugetsound ♬ Imperial Orchestra Pirates of the Caribbean - Imperial Orchestra
@toddswank Whale watching on the Puget Sound Express in Port Angeles, Washington gave us this incredible experience! #humpback #whale #portangeles ♬ original sound - Todd Swank
@toddswank Grandma Linda heard this song and, completely out of the blue, announced, “I want you to play this at my funeral.” 😳 Nothing like casually dropping your final playlist request in the middle of the afternoon. Guess I better write it down before she changes it to something by Pitbull. #whatsup #grandma #funeralsong ♬ original sound - Todd Swank
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