OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Olympic National Park officials say the park is on track for a new annual attendance record.
They expect final figures, which will be available mid-January, to show the park had more than 3.2 million
visitors in 2015.
“It was a great year, but not without some challenges,” said Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for the park.
The park was extremely busy, thanks to a warm spring and long, sunny summer, Maynes said.
“We know this was a very busy summer. The parking lots were full, sometimes beyond capacity,” she said.
As of the end of November, the park had had 3,194,305 recreational visitors (employee and contractor visitations not counted), compared with a November 2014 total of 3,170,284.
December totals will not be available until later this month.
In recent years, December attendance has varied from about 65,000 to 100,000.
Even if attendance dips to the lower range of December visitation numbers, the park is expected to break the 2014 record attendance of 3,243,869.
However, a heavy snowpack on Hurricane Ridge in December, coupled with the park’s ability to open Hurricane Ridge Road each weekend since Thanksgiving, means visitor numbers should be high for the month of December, Maynes said.
The Hurricane Ridge parking lot has filled up every day, she said.
Maynes said much of the attraction to the park over the year was part of the well-advertised 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service and the “Find Your Park” campaign. Parks across the system are experiencing similar increases, she said.
“I’m not surprised,” she said of the potentially record-breaking year.
Tough times
Visitors came despite the largest wildfire in park history, several windstorms that resulted in much of the park being closed and two Elwha River floods that badly damaged a road and two campgrounds in the Elwha Valley.
“There was a lot of hard work on the part of our staff,” Maynes said.
The Elwha River flooded in February, November and December, prompting closures of roads and campgrounds in the Elwha Valley for long periods of time.
Olympic Hot Springs Road was temporarily closed after it was undercut by the Elwha in February. It was patched and reopened after a few days, then closed for a full month for permanent repairs in September.
The Elwha River completely changed its course during February’s flood and completely removed several Altair Campground campsites as the main channel moved across its historic floodplain.
Altair Campground has not been repaired or reopened.
Washed out now
A flood Nov. 17 reactivated a long-dry river channel behind the Elwha Campground, washed out a 60-foot section of Olympic Hot Springs Road and inundated the campground with silt and debris.
A second flood Dec. 8-9 caused additional damage to both the road and campground.
Access is open to Madison Creek Falls, but the road is closed beyond the park gate.
The park has no plans to repair the road or campgrounds until the current rainy season has ended, Maynes said.
In spring, crews will be able to get in to evaluate the full extent of the damage and decide how best to repair the infrastructure, she said.
Fires
A record-low snowpack, followed by a record-dry summer, resulted in a fire in the Queets Rainforest, which burned actively through the summer and into the fall.
The Paradise Fire, which burned 2,796 acres in the Queets River valley, resulted in the closure of backpacking trails in the Queets River area between May and August.
A handful of smaller fires each charred several acres at sites scattered across the mountain range.
The Paradise Fire was sparked by lighting May 14 but started small, smoldering in logs and deep duff, and was not spotted until it emerged in the dry season and made a 300-acre run June 14.
Rains in August and September were not enough to extinguish the fire, which continued smoldering in deep duff under the sheltering branches of the thick rainforest and was not declared extinguished until more than 2 feet of rain fell on the area in November.
It was named the largest wildfire in Olympic National Park history.
Smaller fires, also started by lightning during the record dry season, closed small sections of the park throughout the summer until they were extinguished.
Winds
The entire park was closed for two days after an Aug. 24 windstorm toppled trees onto roads and dropped giant tree branches into campsites, cutting off access to most areas of the park.
Additional storms in November and December also resulted in closures while park crews cleared trees, branches and other debris from park roads and recreation areas.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
