Olympic Mountains
The Olympic Mountains are a
mountain range on the
Olympic Peninsula of western
Washington in the
United States. The
mountains are not especially high -
Mount Olympus is the highest at 2428 m - but the western slopes of the Olympics face the
Pacific Ocean and are thus the wettest place in the 48 contiguous states; the Hoh Ranger Station in the
Hoh Rain Forest records an average of 360 cm of
rainfall each year. Most of the mountains are protected within the bounds of the
Olympic National Park.
The mountains were originally called "Sun-a-do" by the Duwamish Indians, while the first European to see them, the
Spanish navigator Juan Perez, named them "Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia", in 1774.
Encyclopedia
The
Olympic Mountains are a
mountain range on the
Olympic Peninsula of western
Washington in the
United States. The
mountains are not especially high -
Mount Olympus is the highest at 2428 m - but the western slopes of the Olympics face the
Pacific Ocean and are thus the wettest place in the 48 contiguous states; the Hoh Ranger Station in the
Hoh Rain Forest records an average of 360 cm of
rainfall each year. Most of the mountains are protected within the bounds of the
Olympic National Park.
The mountains were originally called "Sun-a-do" by the Duwamish Indians, while the first European to see them, the
Spanish navigator Juan Perez, named them "Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia", in 1774. But the English captain
John Meares, seeing them in 1788, thought them beautiful enough for the gods to dwell there, and named them "Mount Olympus" after the one in
Greece. Alternate proposals never caught on, and in 1864 the
Seattle Weekly Gazette persuaded the government to make the present-day name official. Though readily visible from most parts of western Washington, the interior was almost entirely unexplored until the
1890s. Mount Olympus itself was not ascended until 1907, one of the first successes of The Mountaineers, which had been organized in Seattle just a few years earlier.
The Olympics have the form of a cluster of steep-sided peaks surrounded by heavily-forested foothills and incised by deep valleys.
The climax
forests consist of
Sitka spruce and
western hemlock.
Douglas fir occurs in groves. Other types of
firs may be seen also. Clearings in the forest quickly become covered with
vine maple,
slide alder, and
devil's club, making cross-country travel most challenging.
Another consequence of the high precipitation is the large number of snowfields and
glaciers, reaching down to 1,500 m above sea level.
The
Mount Olympus National Monument was proclaimed by
Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, and made into a park in 1938.
Principal summits:
Reference
- Olympic Mountain Rescue, Climber's Guide to the Olympic Mountains
