The exposed Olympic coast receives the full force of prevailing onshore winds and Pacific storms, with no landmass to break them. The constant salt-laden wind prunes coastal trees into a flagged, leaning shape and drives the wave energy that shapes the beaches, sea stacks, and driftwood lines, making wind a primary force in the coastal landscape.
Feel the car shoulder against the wind out here? This is the rawest weather on the whole drive. There's nothing between you and Asia but open ocean, so the wind comes ashore with a running start and never really quits. You can read it in the trees, every one of them combed flat and leaning inland, branches streaming away from the sea like wet hair. The same gales that bend the spruce drive the storms that built every beach and toppled every drift log. Out here the wind isn't weather. It's the sculptor.
Photo: Ron Clausen · CC BY-SA 4.0
