Olympic Hiking Co.

06/02/2025

Our 2025 Group Guided Backpacking Trips are now open for online reservations!

We’re thrilled to offer seven incredible itineraries in Olympic National Park and the North Cascades this year!

🌲 Whether you’re craving a culinary-inspired adventure along the Olympic Wilderness Coast, a breathtaking trek across the High Divide from Seven Lakes Basin to the Hoh Rain Forest, or an epic journey from Cascade Pass to Stehekin along the PCT, we’ve got something for every explorer.

🥾 New to backpacking? If you’re an avid day hiker ready to take the leap into multi-day adventures, we’d love to welcome you!

✈️ Visiting Olympic or North Cascades for the first time? Let us handle the gear, food, and logistics for a turnkey trip into the backcountry.

✅ Spots are limited—book your adventure now!

🔗 Learn more: https://www.hikeolympic.com/guided-backpacking-trips

28/01/2025

📣 Calling all hiking guides, drivers, and operations specialists! Our 2025 job applications are officially OPEN!

As Olympic Hiking Co. enters its 10th year as a commercially authorized tour company, we’re excited to announce some big expansions on the horizon. To support this growth, we’re kicking off our largest hiring effort yet!

We’re looking to add up to 10 new team members for 2025 with opportunities in Port Angeles, the North Cascades, and Seattle!

Join the OHC family and be part of our mission to provide unforgettable tours, shuttles, and backpacking adventures for the 4,000 hikers we serve annually!

🌲 Ready to take the next step? Apply now:
https://www.hikeolympic.com/employment

29/12/2024

Yesterday, we enjoyed about 20” of fresh snow from last Saturday. And WOW! How magical was it to set brand new tracks along the route toward Hurricane Hill. The new heavy coat of snow covered the subalpine trees, which gave the landscape a black and white photo appearance. Add the rolling clouds, some sunbursts, and falling snow, which made our trek felt like we were snowshoeing through a Hurricane Ridge snow globe.

Such an amazing group of clients and nice to have our first sold-out tour of the snowshoe season. Our January dates are filling fast. We hope to see you join us this winter. 53” of snow at the sensor today with more snow in the forecast! Experience Hurricane Ridge in its best season ❄️

https://www.hikeolympic.com/hurricane-ridge-snowshoe-tour

11/12/2024

Last evening, we held our annual end of season celebration with our employees and their loved ones. It was an incredible gathering to recognize the monumental efforts of our wonderful 20 employee team and enjoy tasty food, coffee, desserts, and wonderful hospitality from our neighbors who hosted us.

While the 2024 stats are impressive, even more inspiring was heartfelt feedback and words of encouragement our team shared with one another. This exemplified our shared mission to help our guests strengthen their connection to the outdoors through exploration, education, and sustainability.

Cheers to finishing our 9th year operating guided day tours, trailhead shuttles, and backpacking trips in Olympic National Park! We look forward to celebrating year 10 with you in 2025!

For now, enjoy our Olympic Hiking Co. “2024 Wrapped” and year in review!

07/12/2024

Our Hurricane Ridge Winter Shuttle is back! Leave the tire chains at home and enjoy a commercial four-wheel-drive shuttle service from Port Angeles to Hurricane Ridge this winter.

The shuttle will operate on Saturdays from 8:30am - 3:30pm December 21, 2024 - March 29, 2025, plus some extra holiday dates. Tickets are just $25 per passenger and advanced online bookings are required.

We hope to welcome you this winter!
https://www.hikeolympic.com/hurricane-ridge-winter-shuttle

19/11/2024

Have you checked the Hurricane Ridge webcams this morning? ❄️ There is already 25” of snow and counting! With this projected La Niña winter and early snowpack, we are aiming to start our Hurricane Ridge Guided Snowshoe Tours on Saturday, December 21st this season! These tours will operate on Saturdays through March 29, 2025.

https://www.hikeolympic.com/hurricane-ridge-snowshoe-tour

Never snowshoed before? Perfect! We have made this a turnkey experience for you. We provide the snowshoes, trekking poles, 4WD shuttle, and local hiking guides. Aside from hiking on one of the top winter trails in Olympic National Park, this tour includes a snowshoe 101 orientation, how to properly outfit your gear, naturalist interpretation, and important things to know about winter hiking and avalanche awareness.

Whether you’re looking to take those first snowshoe steps with a local guide or you’re an experienced snowshoer looking to learn more about the best snowshoe opportunities in ONP, our team would be thrilled to welcome you this winter. In Port Angeles, we go from sea-level to ski-level in a 45 minute drive and enjoy some of the best winter access in the PNW. Fun to look back at all of the awesome memories and smiling faces over the years!

12/09/2024

To celebrate the , we decided to offer a special guided foraging tour on Saturday, October 19th! Departing from our Port Angeles tour office, our local naturalist guide will lead an immersive guided hike in a lush, forested river valley to responsibly harvest a small variety of edible plants, mushrooms, and other fun foraging finds.

https://www.hikeolympic.com/special-events/guided-foraging-tour

Looking to make a full weekend? Our friends at the have an awesome “Mushrooms Lovers” weekend package. Be sure to also check out the FULL slate of fun events for the throughout the week and weekend!

For inspiration, here are some photos from our foraging region on October 18, 2023. Note that not all mushrooms pictured are edible, but still beautiful to capture on camera!

02/07/2024

So excited to introduce Hike Cascades to the world! With Olympic Hiking Co.’s nine years of experience as a commercial tour company in Olympic National Park serving over 4,000 hikers each year, our team is thrilled to be expanding our services into the North Cascades region. We will offer guided day tours, shuttles, and backpacking trips in our pilot 2024 season.

If you’re a former client of ours or simply a longtime friend, please let us know if we can help with your next adventure into the North Cascades!

www.hikecascades.com
(360) 755-8290
[email protected]

11/05/2024

What a show! Some iPhone photos from Lake Crescent around 1:30am last night. Brew that coffee extra strong today!

05/05/2024

At the end of April, we hosted our friends and wonderful industry colleagues from Victoria 🇨🇦. We got to share our exciting news for the return of our Half Day Tour of Olympic National Park and showed them firsthand on the trails! This itinerary features stops at the Elwha River, Lake Crescent, a hike to Marymere Falls, and a visit at Salt Creek.

What’s so special about a half day tour? This 12:45pm-4:45pm itinerary allows travelers from Victoria to experience Olympic National Park on a day trip, specifically timed with the ferry schedule! It also lines up with the Clallam Transit Strait Shot for day trip visits from Seattle! More on that to come next week!
https://www.hikeolympic.com/half-day-tour

Thanks for joining us, neighbors! 🇨🇦

02/05/2024

In April, we welcomed back our guests and the return of our Spring Group Tour schedule. As always, our Hoh Rain Forest and Rialto Beach Tour showcases the beautiful transition into Spring with gorgeous shades of green budding throughout the Olympic Peninsula.

Here are some photos from last week’s small group tour led by our local naturalist guide, Oscar. With a background in botany and foraging, Oscar shares a hands on and engaging deep dive into the unique rain forest ecology of Olympic National Park.

Our group tours operate on Saturdays and Sundays throughout Spring. Then we’ll have tour offerings 7 days per week starting May 18! We hope that you join us and experience the magical bloom of Spring in Olympic.

https://www.hikeolympic.com/group-tours

19/02/2024

There is no question that the winter snowpack has been a challenge this year. However, it has been such a fun opportunity for our guides to explore new regions atop Hurricane Ridge as we focus on those north facing trails! Those ONP webcams can be deceiving as they show those southern exposed slopes.

These photos were from two weekends ago at some of our lowest snow levels since December, and it was still a blast! What a treat it has been for our guides to interconnect Hurricane Hill with these additional northern trails for brand new vistas and trails that aren’t usually available for us.

The snowpack got replenished ahead of this past weekend and there’s a potential system moving in at the end of the month. Here’s for a “Miracle March” as we’re hoping our friends at can open the ski and snowboard area soon! In the meantime, come enjoy the Ridge! We hope to see you on the shuttle or our snowshoe tours! ❄️

01/02/2024

As Olympic Hiking Co. continues to grow, serving over 4,000 hikers last year, we are hiring an Operations Coordinator to join our team! This team member will carefully manage the customer journey for our guests, while dispatching guides, drivers, and vehicles throughout Olympic National Park for our guided day tours, shuttles, and backpacking trips.

We look forward to welcoming a new teammate soon! Online applications will be accepted through February 18, 2024:

If you have a passion for the outdoors and sharing that passion with others, consider joining the Olympic Hiking Co. team! We accept applications for various positions each summer season.

24/01/2024

While Port Angeles was draped in low overcast clouds last Saturday, our guided snowshoe tour group enjoyed incredible views with all peaks and valleys visible atop Hurricane Ridge. Our group members traveled from all over Washington and the greater USA to experience Hurricane Ridge in our favorite season — winter. Because the fragile subalpine meadows are protected in deep snow, we’re able to explore areas of Hurricane Ridge only accessible during the winter season.

18/01/2024

All of this lowland snow has resulted in amazing fresh snowpack atop Hurricane Ridge (5,242 feet). Our second weekend of snowshoe tours was excellent! Our Saturday group tour bundled up for a blue bird day and did great with the -6 wind chill! By Sunday, our temps returned to more normal low 30s and our private tour group had absolutely stellar conditions.

Our small group snowshoe tours are filling fast! Here is what’s available through February:
Sat Jan 20: 2 spots opened today!
Sat Jan 27: 4 spots left
Sat Feb 3: SOLD OUT
Sat Feb 10: SOLD OUT
Sat Feb 17: 6 spots left
Sat Feb 24: 3 spots left

We also do private tours upon request on Sundays, which is great for families, friends, team building, and other large groups. Our snowshoe and shuttle season will operate until March 31st. Come join us!

https://www.hikeolympic.com/hurricane-ridge-snowshoe-tour

07/01/2024

Today was opening day for our Guided Snowshoe Tour season atop Hurricane Ridge and we couldn’t be more excited! From January 6 - March 31, we will be leading small group snowshoe tours for up to 10 guests with our two winter hiking guides. We provide snowshoes, trekking poles, and have picnic lunches available for purchase from . Whether you’re a first timer or an experienced snowshoer, we hope to have you join a tour this season!

Looking to explore on self-guided adventure? Not a problem! Our roundtrip Hurricane Ridge Winter Shuttle from Downtown Port Angeles departs at 8:30am on Saturdays and Sundays, starting at $15 per passenger. All thanks to a great local partnership with the winter sports education foundation!

FYI: these photos are from last season and reflect various snowpack levels. And for those watching the webcams from home recently, the snowfall came JUST in time. 8.5” inches of fresh snow last night, 24” inches at the sensor this morning, and more to come!

18/11/2023

Our Hurricane Ridge Winter Shuttle Service is back for its third season! On Saturdays and Sundays from January 6 - March 31, 2024, book your online tickets to ride on the four-wheel-drive winter shuttle bus up to Hurricane Ridge, departing from the Port Angeles Wharf at 8:30 AM and returning by 3:30 PM.

Tickets start at just $15 per passenger and advanced bookings are required. Learn more and book online here:
https://www.hikeolympic.com/hurricane-ridge-winter-shuttle

A special thanks to our partners and supporters including: Hurricane Ridge Ski and Snowboard Area, Port Angeles Wharf, Black Ball Transport, and City of Port Angeles.

08/07/2023

Hurricane Ridge officially reopened on June 27, 2023. Here are some helpful updates to share:

1) BREAKING: Hurricane Ridge is still stunningly beautiful.

2) Due to limited portable toilets, Olympic National Park has a daily quota of 345 private vehicles that can access Hurricane Ridge each day. Once the quota has been reached (generally between 10:00am-12:00pm), the road is closed for the day to private vehicles. Follow ONP's Hurricane Ridge Twitter Account for real-time updates.

3) The EXCELLENT news is that as a commercially authorized tour and shuttle company in ONP, Olympic Hiking Co. is still able to access Hurricane Ridge throughout the day as part of our guided tours and shuttles!

4) More good news is that Clallam Transit has expanded their service for daily bus shuttles to Hurricane Ridge as well to help accommodate the private vehicle closure.

5) Please note there is no longer access to drinking water or indoor shelter atop Hurricane Ridge. Prepare and plan accordingly.

We're thrilled to be back on our regular summer group tour schedule, visiting the Sol Duc, Lake Crescent, and Hurricane Ridge on Fridays and Sundays and visiting the Hoh Rain Forest and Rialto Beach on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Mondays. If you're looking to experience the top destinations of Olympic National Park with a local Naturalist Guide, we hope to have you join us! Our group tours depart from our tour office inside the Port Angeles Wharf at 7:30 AM.

Our July tours are filling quickly, so please book online in advance. Have a wonderful and safe summer!
https://www.hikeolympic.com/group-tours