Olympic Coast Route

The biggest gap here is weather, and on the Olympic Coast that's not a minor inconvenience — it's the whole ballgame. NWS data is unavailable for this briefing, which means we have no wind forecast, no precipitation outlook, and no visibility data for a route that regularly sees 30+ mph onshore winds, horizontal rain, and headlands that require tide-dependent passage. Before you go, pull the NWS point forecast for La Push and Quillayute (KUIL), and get the NOAA tide tables for the Olympic Coast — the Hole-in-the-Wall and other mandatory passage points are only navigable within a specific tide window, typically below +2.0 ft. Plan your daily mileage around the tides, not the other way around.

Stream crossings on the Olympic Coast route — particularly the Ozette River area and the smaller drainages between Rialto and Third Beach — look manageable right now. The relevant regional gauges are all running 79–105% of median, stable, with no spike in SWE-driven melt indicated. The SNOTEL at McNeil Canyon (1,348 ft) is already at 0 inches, so there's no meaningful snowmelt contribution driving flows up. Expect crossings to be routine for April — ankle-to-knee deep on the main drainages, nothing requiring a packraft. That said, a multi-day rain event (which is entirely plausible given no forecast data) could change this quickly.

No active fires within 50 miles, so air quality and smoke are non-issues. Snowpack data is irrelevant at Olympic Coast elevations — the route is sea level to a few hundred feet and you won't encounter snow. The SNOTEL readings included in the raw data (Annie Springs at 6,021 ft, Long Lake at 840 ft) are not geographically relevant to this route and should be ignored.

You've got excellent daylight — 14+ hours with sunset at 8:24 PM — which gives you a ton of flexibility for tide-window travel and camp setup. The Olympic Coast is a go logistically if the weather cooperates. Get that forecast before you leave the trailhead, and have a hard plan for which headlands you're rounding at what tides each day. If a storm front is moving in April 27–28, the north-facing exposed sections between Chilean Memorial and Cape Johnson are not where you want to be in 40-knot wind and 10-foot surf.