Mount Olympus from Hurricane Ridge
— — the snow that feeds the rainforest.
Not only on a wall.
“From the Hurricane Ridge visitor area, set just above five thousand feet on the dry side of the Olympic Peninsula, the view runs south across the long green ridges of the Bailey Range to Mount Olympus. The peak is only 7,980 feet, modest by Cascades standards, but it carries more glacier ice than any non-volcanic mountain in the contiguous United States outside the North Cascades. The wet of the Hoh River rainforest below begins as the snow on its summit. The road up from Port Angeles is seventeen miles. From the lot the air is alpine, the sound is wind, and the great peak is far.
Mount Olympus from Hurricane Ridge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Hurricane Ridge sits at 5,242 feet (1,598 m) on the northern shoulder of the Olympic Mountains, inside Olympic National Park. A 17-mile paved road climbs from Port Angeles, Washington, and it is the only road in the park that reaches the high country. From the ridge the view runs south over the Elwha River drainage and the green peaks of the Bailey Range to Mount Olympus, the highest summit in the Olympic Range at 7,980 feet (2,432 m). Olympic National Park was established in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and protects about 922,000 acres. The park holds three distinct ecosystems inside one boundary (coastal beach, temperate rainforest, and alpine), and Hurricane Ridge is the easiest way into the third.
Mount Olympus carries more glacier ice than any non-volcanic peak in the contiguous United States outside the North Cascades. The Blue Glacier on its northern flank is among the most-studied glaciers in North America, with a continuous mass-balance record dating from the 1950s through the University of Washington. The summit and its ice fields are the headwaters of the Hoh River, which falls west through the Hoh Rain Forest, one of the wettest places in the lower 48, receiving roughly 140 inches of precipitation a year. The line of cause is direct: the snow at the top is the rainforest at the bottom. Seeing the peak from Hurricane Ridge is a long-distance look at the source.
Hurricane Ridge Road opens from Port Angeles year-round, weather permitting, and is the only paved access to the Olympic high country. In winter the road typically opens Friday through Sunday only, when conditions allow, and a small snow-play and Nordic-ski area runs at the top. The original Hurricane Ridge Day Lodge burned in May 2023, and the National Park Service has been operating with interim facilities while planning a replacement. Olympic National Park charges a per-vehicle entrance fee, and an America the Beautiful pass covers it. The south face of Olympus turns pink for a few minutes at sunset, after the sun is off Hurricane Ridge itself.