Queets River

About 12,000 years ago vast continental glaciers were in retreat, leaving behind rounded hills and marshy meadows. There were no dense forests yet. Elk, bison, wolves and mastodons roamed the land, and humans roamed with them.

The first efforts to settle ...

La Push / Mora

Severe currents, rocks and infamous weather doomed many ships along this wild coast. Shipwrecked mariners told of hardships endured on the rugged and desolate shoreline, and of dramatic rescues, some involving heroic assistance from local tribes. Memorials north of Rialto ...

Hurricane Ridge

Life at Hurricane Ridge is shaped by wind and snow. Over 75 mile an hour gusts buffet the ridge, lending the name "Hurricane." The 30-35 feet of snow that falls annually lingers into summer, shaping life year-round. Its weight challenges ...

Hoh River and Valley

Francis Hornby Barkley, Captain Barkley's wife, is believed to have been the first woman to visit this part of the Northwest coast and recorded the event in her diary. The event is significant since Charles Barkley is generally credited with ...

Elwha River

For millennia, the Klallam people relied on fish nurtured by the Elwha River watershed. That relationship was largely severed when the Elwha Dam was built, blocking fish runs five miles from the river mouth. In 1910-1913, Thomas Aldwell built a ...

Sunshine Point Campground

During the Depression the NPS continued to define park visitors as all those people who visited the park for pleasure. The actual number of people in the park was considerably higher as hundreds of men came to work in emergency ...

Camp Muir

The public shelter and guide shelter at Camp Muir were built between 1916 and 1921 by joint Mountaineers and park service effort. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Muir ...

White River Wilderness Information Center

Mount Rainier National Park maintains active relations with six Indian tribes located in its vicinity: the Nisqually, Puyallup, Squaxin Island, Muckleshoot, Yakama, and Cowlitz. All but the Cowlitz trace their modern tribal identity to one or more of three treaties ...

White River: “Pink Salmon”

Large spots and pronounced dorsal hump distinguish this salmon [Pink Salmon] from other species. Appear silvery with white belly when spawning. There is no reference to Pink Salmon having occurred in the park historically, but several recent observations of this ...

Winthrop Glacier

The beauty and grandeur of "Tacoma" was noted frequently by Winthrop on the way up the Puyallup River and across to the White River, where he met some of McClellan's men engaged in the survey of the road. On August ...