Leader: Dr. Geoff Hammerson

Surrounded by the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula encompasses a truly remarkable diversity of landscapes and life. This distinctive region is centered around 7,980-foot Mt. Olympus and extends eastward to Tatoosh Island, the westernmost point in the contiguous United States. Here we find the kelp-bed homes of sea otters, some of the world’s most magnificent temperate rainforests, glacier-carved alpine summits, and a unique and fascinating assemblage of plant and animal life.

During this field seminar, based at beautiful Crescent Lake Lodge, we’ll spend several days exploring wave-swept beaches, tide pools rich with anemones, seastars, and chitons, and the peninsula’s famous moss-cloaked rainforests, where annual rainfall averages more than 140 inches. In the high mountains, we enter the domain of glaciers and the endemic Olympic marmot. The startling dry rainshadow habitats on the eastern peninsula offer stands of drought-hardy madrone, tough cacti, and even lizards basking in the sun!

Our walks and field discussions focus on how and why forests change over time, interactions among coastal organisms, and the lives and challenges faced by the region’s wildlife, such as the Pacific salmon and their spawning streams, endemic plants and animals of the Olympic Peninsula, and locally nesting populations of spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and other species inhabiting oldgrowth forests. We’ll look at the special niche occupied by the region’s amphibian fauna, including the unique reproductive biology of tailed frogs. We set the stage for our explorations by reviewing the geological and glacial history of a mountain range that has been literally scraped from the ocean floor. Each evening, after returning from the field, we’ll sit back and enjoy a hearty dinner and a lecture on the Olympic flora or fauna by a local expert. Join us for this workshop and get to know the Olympic Peninsula!

Price: $1,450. (includes a $400 deposit)

Group Size: 12 Trip Rating: 3

Price Includes: all instruction and guide services, 6 nights’ lodging at the Crescent Lake Lodge, 15- passenger van transportation throughout the workshop, all meals during the workshop, and NPS entrance fees. Does not include roundtrip transportation to Port Angeles from your point of departure, alcohol, or other items of a personal nature. The workshop begins and ends in Port Angeles, Washington.