WASHINGTON'S WILDS THE TERRAIN IS DIVERSE, THE HUMAN IMPRINT MINIMAL AT OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK.

Byline: Story by Eric Noland Travel Editor

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, Wash. - Driftwood logs stretch out like hibernating beasts on a pebbly, fog-shrouded shoreline.

A rain forest is resplendent in a raiment of green - the ground thick with ferns and shrubs, and moss dripping from tree limbs.

Mountains soar to serrated peaks, encrusted with glacial bowls, and in the steep alpine meadows you'll be humming ``The Sound of Music'' against your will.

Remarkably, all three of these worlds can be found in a single national park in the northwestern-most corner of the continental United States. In only 1,442 square miles, Olympic National Park presents awesome natural diversity.

Virtually untouched, too. The forbidding terrain of the Olympic Mountains, which form a circular cluster at the center of the park, historically defied development. In 1988, 95 percent of the park was designated wilderness, barring permanent improvements or human habitation.

There is no road that knifes from one edge of the park to the other. Instead, visitors must circumnavigate it, mainly on a near-circular sweep of U.S. 101, and drop in at any number of spur roads.

Head down any road, or drive along a 60-mile stretch of Pacific coastline (grafted onto the park in the 1950s) and you're likely to encounter scenery unlike anything you saw 20 minutes earlier.

Visitors from the parched environs of Southern California are understandably drawn to the rain forests, which spring from the western slopes of the Olympic Mountains.

The mountains, named by a 1788 explorer who thought their majesty worthy of Greek deity, aren't particularly tall, but they rise steeply from the coastline - from sea level to 8,000 feet in 33 miles. Pacific storms that roll onshore slam into this barrier and disgorge their precipitation in a gush.

``They measure the rainfall in feet over there,'' said general manager Bill Ahler of the Lake Crescent Lodge, which is on the north side of the park. Well, they surely could. The average is 140 inches, and the record is 191 inches - nearly 16 feet of rain - which fell in 1997.

It makes this portion of Olympic National Park the wettest place in the contiguous 48 states, and it creates a world little imagined beyond the fiction of Tolkien.

An 18 1/2-mile road juts into the Hoh Rain Forest off U.S. 101. From the visitor center at the end of the road, head out on the Hall of Mosses Trail, a three-quarter-mile loop through an older segment of the forest. The walk is so gentle you'll likely encounter seniors and preschool-age kids in rubber boots on the pathway.

And what a nether realm it is.

Clubmoss spills from tree branches and knobby trunks as if applied with a giant Christmas flocking machine, draping off at lengths up to 5 feet. It looks something like a parasite - similar to the mistletoe that bedevils oak trees in Southern California. But though on the tree, it is not extracting anything from it. Instead, these mossy beards spread out to capture air and light, getting their water from above and nutrients from particles borne on breezes.

Look down, around and up. You'll be hard-pressed to find two square inches that are not covered with green. The forest floor is thick with sword ferns, vine maple, salmonberry shrubs and clover with leaves as big as quarters.

Moss and lichen overtake the towering Sitka spruce trees that are dominant here. If you lose your bearings, the adage about moss growing on the north side of the tree won't do you much good; it covers all sides of the trunks and every appendage.

And woe to the trees that fall. The greenery overwhelms them. Since the rain forest undergrowth is so dense, seedlings can have a fighting chance only by sprouting atop these ``nurse logs,'' then eventually spreading their roots down the sides of the log like straddling legs.

When sunlight can fight its way through the near-constant overcast to penetrate this world, the effect is enchanting.

The adjacent Spruce Nature Trail, a 1 1/4-mile loop, attracts much less traffic than the Hall of Mosses walk but is highly recommended. It shows the forest in various stages of development, and also includes some open vistas along the Hoh River.

On this hike, I surprised a great blue heron along Taft Creek, and watched in wonder as it awkwardly unfolded into flight like some rickety World War I flying machine. Also on this trail was a precise row of mature trees, positioned as if in military formation along the line of the nurse log that had long since moldered away beneath them.

After a couple of hours in the claustrophobic world of the rain forest canopy, many visitors probably itch for a much less confined environment - a view out over the Pacific Ocean, perhaps.

This is easily achieved in the southwest corner of the park, along a stretch of U.S. 101 that courses through a sliver of coastal parkland. Trails lead down to a half-dozen beaches, including Ruby Beach, noted for its spires of rock along the water's edge and its eerie bone yard of driftwood.

The spires are sea stacks - eroded chunks of a coastline that was rearranged during the Ice Age. Many other rocky outcroppings lie just offshore, playing peek-a-boo with the tides. In the 1700s and 1800s, they were the scourge of mariners who attempted to explore or ply their commerce along this coast.

The driftwood, meanwhile, doesn't resemble the designer, craft-ready specimens you're used to seeing on a beach. In this region of gully-washer climes, entire trees are undercut along inland stream banks and hurled out to sea whole, there to be stripped of needles and moss and branches by the pounding surf. They're deposited on the shore looking like massive conifer telephone poles.

Southern Californians who've longed in vain for a quiet moment on a beach will revel in this world. Brisk winds, dense fog and chilly temperatures chase off the sunbathers, and you can bundle up and walk great distances in solitude along this rugged coast.

A word of caution, though: Consult a tide table in advance, and explore at low tide. Unwary walkers have been known to round a dry point or headland only to find it assaulted by thundering waves on the return walk. Also, those high-tide waves can lift the driftwood trunks like so many matchsticks and send them rolling up the shore - and potentially over you.

For an experience unlike either the rain forest or the coast, head to the northeast corner of the park. There, another spur road cuts through a residential area in the town of Port Angeles, passes the park's main visitor center and climbs to Hurricane Ridge.

At this time of year, you can ski here, if the wind doesn't knock you out of your bindings (the name of the ridge was not randomly assigned). One chair lift and a couple of rope tows accommodate snow-sports enthusiasts.

At more temperate times of the year, you can pick up the Hurricane Hill Trail at the end of the road and ascend (steeply, in places) through a landscape that might remind you of Switzerland.

The trail affords near-constant views of the Olympic Mountains, the sharp teeth of their peaks packed with glaciers even at the end of summer. Meadows roll steeply off the trail, and if your visit coincides with late spring or summer, you'll likely see oceans of wildflowers.

By mid-October this year, the meadows were buff-colored and the flowers were long gone, although there were bright-red patches of huckleberry vines along the ground and brilliant splashes of yellow provided by big-leaf maple trees in the otherwise evergreen forests.

The trail climbs 1.6 miles to an overlook, and on a clear day you can gaze out across the Olympic Peninsula and the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Canada's Victoria Island. On my visit, I saw only a sea of cotton clouds, with forested peaks protruding from it like islands - but an impressive sight in its own right.

Still another spur road, just west of Port Angeles, reaches into the Elwha Valley. A local resident had suggested taking a fork off this route toward the Whiskey Bend trailhead. It meant driving 4.2 miles of unimproved road that was barely wide enough for one vehicle, but the payoff was a delightful hiking trail that traverses a slope of the Elwha River Valley.

It's a lush environment (though not the equal of the rain forest), and viewpoints take in the river far below and the mountain slopes opposite.

I encountered a group of backpackers headed deeper into the park for an overnight camp-out. That would have to be an excursion saved for next time. Olympic National Park's roads reach tentatively into this wilderness, but an extensive network of trails takes over thereafter. There are 16 developed campgrounds in the park - and 95 wilderness camps.

The appeal of that great unsettled expanse is understandable, and has been luring adventurers for some time. After hiking 2.3 miles on this trail, you'll come upon a ramshackle cabin that was thrown together on a bluff above the river more than a century ago.

It seems two cousins from New York - Will and Martin Humes - traveled to the Pacific Northwest in 1897, intending to proceed to the Yukon for the Klondike Gold Rush. But while riding out the winter in Port Angeles, they ventured into the Elwha Valley, scratched out a homestead and never left. They ranched, farmed, hunted and led pack trips into the backcountry.

Their timing was impeccable. The year they arrived, President Grover Cleveland designated a large chunk of the Olympic Peninsula a forest reserve in order to blunt a logging spree in the Northwest. The protected land was the forerunner to Olympic National Park.

The Humes boys left home for gold and instead found green. Their contentment with that trade-off is understandable.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Tourist services and the main Visitors Center for Olympic National Park are located in Port Angeles, Wash., on the north side of the park. Although many visitors are keen to ride an auto ferry from Seattle, locals will tell you the fastest route from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is a dry-land one. Drive south from the airport on Interstate 5 to Highway 16 (toward Bremerton). Highway 16 turns into Highway 3. When you cross the Hood Canal Bridge, you're on Highway 104, which joins U.S. 101 just east of Port Angeles. This route is 134 miles in length; allow 2 1/2 hours for the drive. If you feel you must travel over water, catch the Bainbridge Island ferry at Pier 52 in Seattle, then take Route 305 across the island to where it joins Highway 3 north.

COSTS: The entrance fee to the national park is $10 per vehicle, good for seven days. Wilderness-use permits cost $5, plus $2 per person per night.

EATS: For breakfast before hitting the trail, or lunch after a morning excursion, hunt down First Street Haven, at 107 E. First St., Port Angeles; [phone]. It's a tiny cafe that serves up fresh-baked items and delicious sandwiches. Cash only. If you're exploring beaches on the west side of the park, a great place to escape the foggy chill is Kalaloch Lodge (in the town of the same name). Overseen by the national park concessionaire, its window tables afford views of the coastline - and soup is always on the menu; [phone].

INFORMATION: From U.S. 101 in Port Angeles, turn south on Race Street to reach the National Park Visitor Center; [phone]; www.nps.gov/olym. The North Olympic Peninsula Visitor & Convention Bureau can provide information on lodging and other activities in the region: [phone]; www.olympicpeninsula.org.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) A moss-encrusted log, above, surrenders peacefully to the encroaching greenery of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, Wash. Easy loop trails give visitors a chance to see the natural wonders on display in an area that receives 140 inches of rain each year. The Hurricane Hill Trail, above right, leads hikers through meadows that afford spectacular views of glacier-carved peaks.

(3 -- color) Sea stacks loom at Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park. Visitors may find such diverse scenery as shore, forest and mountains within the park's 1,442 square miles.

(4 -- 5) In 1988, lawmakers designated 95 percent of the Hoh Rain Forest as permanent wilderness. The area averages 140 inches of rain per year, and moss gathers quickly on any inert surface, above right.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

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IF YOU GO (see text)

Map:

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist