From Washington To You
Sunset over the Pacific from Kalaloch Beach, with Destruction Island on the horizon.
Photograph by Olympic National Park. Public domain.

From Washington to you

Kalaloch

Kalaloch · Jefferson County

One of the most visited stretches of Olympic National Park sits right on Highway 101, with seven beach trails and a year-round campground on the bluff.

Kalaloch is on the southwest coast of the Olympic Peninsula, reachable directly from Highway 101. NPS calls it one of the most visited areas of Olympic National Park. A ranger station is open in summer. Trails from the lodge and campground lead to a sandy beach below a bluff.

Seven trails lead to the ocean from Highway 101. Beach 4 is an excellent tidepooling spot for seastars and anemones at low tide. Beach 1 has spruce burls. Ruby Beach and Beach Trail 4 have accessible viewpoints. When hiking the coast, NPS says, always check the tides; some stretches become impassable at high water.

Kalaloch Campground is open year-round. South Beach Campground, just south of Kalaloch, is open in summer. Pets are allowed on Kalaloch area beaches if they stay on a leash. North of this coast, the Hoh River is a natural boundary. The sources below are Olympic National Park pages.

  • Geography & Geology

Sources (3)

Last reviewed: September 21, 2026

Keep wandering

  • nearby

    Hoh Rain Forest

    Pacific storms drop 12 to 14 feet of rain a year on one of the last primeval temperate rain forests in the lower 48.

  • nearby

    Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary

    NOAA designated 3,188 square miles of ocean off the Olympic Peninsula on July 22, 1994, from the beaches out across the continental shelf.

  • same park

    Olympic National Park, 1938

    Franklin Roosevelt signed the park into law on June 29, 1938, after a 1937 visit, on ground first reserved in 1897 and later set aside for Roosevelt elk.

  • nearby

    Rialto Beach

    Drift logs, seastacks, and a 1.5-mile walk to Hole-in-the-Wall define this Olympic wilderness beach 75 miles from Port Angeles.

  • nearby

    Ruby Beach

    Cedar Creek meets the Pacific 7.5 miles north of Kalaloch. About 225,000 people a year walk down to the stacks and tide pools.

Kalaloch · From Washington To You