Looping around the northern Olympic Peninsula, US-101 finally reaches the coast 27 miles south of Forks at Ruby Beach, where a series of wave-sculpted sea stacks frame a photogenic, driftwood-strewn cove. From Ruby Cove, US-101 runs south through the wild coastal section of Olympic National Park, which is almost always foggy and cool, even when the weather’s sunny and hot just a mile inland. While almost the entire coast south from Cape Flattery is protected within the national park, this is the only easily accessible stretch. Parking areas along the highway, numbered from Beach 6 to Beach 1 north to south, give access to 20 miles of generally deserted beach, backed by rocky bluffs and packed with tidepools and an incredible variety of flotsam and jetsam.
At the southern end of this short but sweet stretch of coastline, between Beach 2 and Beach 3, 25 miles north of Lake Quinault, Kalaloch Lodge ($120–250; 360/962-2271) is a modern resort, with a coffee shop and a nice restaurant overlooking a picturesque cove. There’s also a gas station, a summer-only ranger station across US-101, and an oceanside campground just to the north.
South of Kalaloch (pronounced KLAY-lock), US-101 turns inland along the northern border of the massive Quinault Indian Reservation, not reaching the Pacific again until the mouth of the Columbia River.
