Hints and Tips:

While planning our trip here are some things I learned. Your experience my differ under different circumstances, so take these for what they are worth.

  1. It's hard to plan a 3-4 day loop in Olympic NP. Most of the trails I found seemed to be a little long, or a little short to be done in that time frame.

  2. If you're looking to stay in a hotel the night before hiking in the SW corner of the park, Aberdeen is about your only choice.

  3. Bear canisters are not required, but they are recommened. The backcountry ranger stations have loaners.

Information Sources:

Here are the sources I used to plan our trip. I found the Olympic National Park website to have tons of information regarding backcountry trail, although by itself probably doesn't provide enough information to plan a trip entirely. Additionally both books seemed to be a little out of date on the backcountry campsites, at times being at odds with the National Park's website and at times being at odds with each other.

Books:
Maps:
Web Sites: