Jefferson County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Jefferson County

One hundred and forty-two inches of average annual precipitation at the NOAA Quinault co-op rain gauge inside the Hoh River valley make the western half of Jefferson County the wettest measured location in the contiguous United States — a moisture engine that produces the only temperate rainforest ecosystem on the continent, with Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and bigleaf maple draped in club mosses (Selaginella oregana) thick enough to soundproof the forest floor. The 1,804-sq-mi county spans the entire width of the Olympic Peninsula at its narrowest pinch, from saltwater Hood Canal at sea level to the 7,962-ft glacier-capped summit of Mount Olympus, with the entire Olympic National Park west slope inside its boundaries per NPS Foundation Document acreage tables. US-101 is the only paved through-route, and the 19-mile dead-end paved Upper Hoh Road off US-101 at Forks (the spur into the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center) caps the developed campground at a 21-foot rig length per NPS Olympic Visitor Use Plan — anything larger must stage in Forks (population 3,335, the resupply anchor at the US-101 / WA-110 junction, full grocery, propane, and diesel) and shuttle in.

Port Townsend (population 9,894) at the northeast corner is the only Victorian-architecture-preserved port city on the US West Coast: the 1880s seaport boomtown grid platted in anticipation of becoming the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway survived the 1893 railroad-bypass economic collapse intact because the bust froze new construction for forty years, and the resulting National Historic Landmark District holds the country's largest concentration of unmodified 1880s commercial brick storefronts north of San Francisco. Fort Worden State Park immediately west of Port Townsend accepts rigs to 50 ft with full hookups on 80 sites. Olympic NF's Hood Canal Ranger District permits 14-day dispersed camping at signed pullouts along Forest Service Road 24 (Wynoochee Lake) and Forest Service Road 25 (Skokomish River), accommodating rigs to 30 ft.