Isolation by ice and water allowed roughly two dozen animal species to evolve uniquely in the Olympic Mountains, including the Olympic snow mole and the Olympic chipmunk. Cut off from surrounding populations, the peninsula functions much like an island, and its endemic species are found in these mountains and nowhere else on Earth.
Here's something that makes this range a kind of natural laboratory. Because ice and water sealed this peninsula off like an island for so long, life here drifted down its own evolutionary path. There are around two dozen creatures found nowhere else on Earth, things with names like the Olympic snow mole and the Olympic torrent salamander, quietly going about their business here and on no other patch of ground anywhere. Cut off from the mainland's animals, the peninsula bred its own, and you're driving past the edge of a world that ran undisturbed for a very long time.
Photo: USFWS - Pacific Region · Public domain
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