Today, there are 59 national parks; each is exceptional and impressive in their own way. Last year, the National Park Service recorded over 307 million visitors to the 59 parks. Three of the most beautiful parks reside in the Evergreen State: Washington. These parks include Mount Rainer NP, North Cascades NP, and Olympic NP. If you visit Seattle, and want to experience the outdoors a little, visiting any of these national parks will leave you with unforgettable memories.
Mount Rainer National Park
Mount Rainer NP is the closest of three from Seattle with only a 64.8-mile drive from the city center. In 2015, 1,237,231 people visited the park. Mount Rainer is the tallest mountain in Washington with an elevation of 14,416 feet.
With that said, the most popular hike to complete in this park is to climb to the peak of Mount Rainer.
Many individuals across the United States, and the world, strive to climb to the crests of the tallest mountains in all 50 states; and one of the most favorable peaks is Mount Rainer.
However, it is quite strenuous. For the average hiker, I would recommend the Carbon Glacier Trail.
It is 17 miles round-trip, and takes approximately 9 hours to complete. The iconic part of this hike is to walk alongside Carbon Glacier, which supplies the water to form the Carbon River. However, this glacier is the lowest-elevated glacier in the adjoining 48 states. It is phenomenal to witness.
North Cascades National Park
North Cascades NP is the farthest of three parks from Seattle with a 116-mile drive from the Seattle's downtown area. Interestingly, it is the least visited park, where only 20,677 people visited last calendar year. If you like more peace and quiet, this is the park for you. From my hiking, I would recommend voyaging on the Hannegan Peak trail.
It is 10.4 miles round-trip, and offers the best view of the entire park.
From the peak, you can see 360-degree outlooks of the Cascade Mountain range, the Stephen Mather Wilderness areas, and Mount Baker.
It is one of the best views of nature across the United States.
Olympic National Park
Olympic NP is the most popular of the three parks, as seen by the largest population of 3,263,761 people visiting in 2015. It is an 82.5-mile drive from the Seattle's city center. Now, Olympic National Park is very unique in that it has three different ecosystems contained in its 1,442 square miles of outdoor heaven. You can choose to walk on either the Rialto or Kalaloch beach alongside the Pacific Ocean, or you can hike in Olympic Mountain range between glaciers!
If either of those still doesn't encourage you to visit, you can also hike through the Olympic National Forest, composed of 628,115-acres of varied landscapes surrounding the national park. If you would like to experience these three environments, I would highly recommend hiking through Ruby Beach, Sol Duc Falls, and Lake of Angels. Ruby Beach is a very easy hike, and is only 0.5 miles round-trip.
It has been argued by many to be the best beach in the park. Sol Duc Falls is only 1.6 miles round-trip, and offers views of the some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world!
The Lake of Angels is hidden away deep within the national park, and is an 8-mile round-trip hike.It offers one of the most exquisite outlooks of the park through the everlasting views of glaciers, waterfalls, mountains, lakes, and rich marmot and mountain goat populations.
