A PLACE WHERE THE DREAMS NEVER END

Words by Chris Nelson | Photography by John Ryan Hebert

Known as America’s last wilderness, the 3,600-square-mile Olympic Peninsula is home to rugged alpine mountain ranges, primordial beaches, salmon-filled rivers, and vast temperate rainforests that stretch from the Pacific Coast to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates the northernmost edge of the U.S. from Canada. The Olympic Peninsula is now visited by over three million people annually, but native tribes had thrived in the formidably beautiful paradise for millennia prior to the arrival of European settlers in the 1500s, who came to poach otter pelts and strip the forest of its timber.

It wasn’t until 1897 that the area received its first national designation, Olympic Forest Reserve. Forty years after that, President Franklin Roosevelt visited the Peninsula and gave his support for the establishment of a national park in order to protect its natural resources, as well as the cultural histories of its Native peoples. Today, eight Olympic Peninsula tribes recognize a relationship to the park based on traditional land use and spiritual practices, and one of them, the Quinault Indian Nation, claims ownership of the water that Culver slowly wades through.

A Hollywood-based producer who has brought to life some of television’s most addictively and mindlessly entertaining shows, Culver shuffles his feet across the pebble lakebed with a steaming mug of instant coffee in hand. The ripples in the water break the still, mirror-like surface blanketed in an opaque layer of fog, split in the middle like an over-risen loaf of bread, and through the break we see the silhouettes of grand houses tucked into the trees on the far side of the lake, bathed in citrus sunrise. Suddenly another man, Mike Burke, bursts forth from his cheap, child-sized tent and runs into the water, until he trips and plunges down with a violent splash. When he stands up, he looks back at the shore with a wide, wild smile as water pours out from his snarled beard.

Burke owns a company that does large-format digital printing, and he and Culver were invited on this adventure by their friends Alan Mendenhall and Thom Hill of Iron & Resin, a Ventura, California-based clothing company. None of the four men had ever visited the Olympic Peninsula and thought it would be an idyllic location to ride motorcycles and photograph a lookbook for Iron & Resin’s newest collection. They invited META along to document their two-day ride north from the lake along the lone road that loops around the Peninsula, U.S. Route 101, to explore as much as possible before ending the trip at the top of Mount Olympus on the edge of the Peninsula’s largest city, Port Angeles. 

Once everyone finishes their coffees, the guys saddle up on an eclectic collection of motorcycles: Burke has his Yamaha WR450, Culver rides a Honda XR600, Hill brought his Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled, and Mendenhall has a Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 that he recently transformed into a Baja-worthy, scrambler-style bobber. They ride in a tight pack through the morning mist as small leaks of sunlight shimmer gold against their wet waxed-canvas jackets. After 30 minutes, they arrive at Kalaoch Campground, which is perched on rocky bluff above a sandy beach that is home to “The Tree of Life,” a large Sitka spruce tree that continues to green despite the ground around its roots having eroded long ago, making the tree appear to float in the air.

We set up camp at a first-come, first-served site before getting back behind the handlebars and riding an hour inland to the Hoh Rainforest, one of four temperate rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula. We wade through the mile-long Hall of Mosses trail loop, which can be one of the quietest places in America. We stare up at the lush green canopy created by the huge, knotted branches of big-leaf maples, cedars, spruces, hemlocks, and firs, with bright-yellow leaves falling through beards of clubmoss and swaying epiphytes. Underfoot is a soft, soggy forest floor of mosses, lichens, and ferns that Burke can’t help but jump up and down on, amazed by its sponginess. Culver quips that it looks like the Hobbit home of the Shire, and asks, “Did anybody else’s feet just grow a few inches, or is it just me?” 

On the way back to camp, we decide to stop at Ruby Beach, where massive sea stacks stand sentry just offshore, bald eagles nest in the bluff trees, plum starfish crawl through the coastline tide pools, and huge piles of driftwood collect on the shingly beach, the bones of the rainforest picked clean by the sea. Burke jumps up onto a long-dead tree trunk and starts pushing his feet forward, riding the driftwood down the beach like a professional log roller. 

He loses his footing just before reaching the water, but then out of nowhere, Mendenhall jumps on and finishes the job. Unfortunately, the fun was short-lived, because Instagram fame turned this once-untouched beach into a destination for van-life influencers and misguided couples who force their camera-shy dogs into self-indulgent engagement photos, and before long our patience wore thin, our bellies moaning for dinner and beer.

Back at camp, Willie Nelson plays through a Bluetooth speaker as we build a campfire and watch Hill plop sausages into a beer-filled crock, cutting potatoes into wedges and wrapping them in aluminum foil lined with butter and garlic. For whatever reason, food is more satisfying when cooked over an open flame. We spend the rest of the evening sharing stories, telling jokes, and laughing under the moonlight. 

The forecast had called for heavy rain throughout the night and into the following day. Most of the Olympic Peninsula is typically wet and rainy, especially in the shoulder seasons and winter, so we had figured it would likely be unavoidable. As we head north the following morning on the 101 through the now-famous town of Forks – where Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight book series is based – the gloomy scene still feels like a dream, but one that at any moment could turn into a nightmare: darker, drearier, more ominous and foreboding, yet still undeniably captivating. Thankfully we get to enjoy a short break in the weather as we ride around Lake Crescent, a deep, glacially carved lake in the northern foothills of the Olympic mountains.

The rain falls in cold, whipping sheets as we start up Hurricane Ridge Road, a steep, 17-mile stretch of smooth pavement with tunnels, chicanes, and long corners that climbs to an elevation of over 5,200 feet. On a clear day the peak offers incredible panoramic views of Olympic National Park, but all we can see are dark silhouettes of pines set against the faint outlines of distant mountaintops. All four guys tremble with cold in the dripping wet, but they can’t help but smile. Burke says, “It’s about enjoying these moments, no matter what. Even riding through this pissing rain, I don’t care that my legs are cold, and my hands are frozen ... it’s clarity, it’s freedom, it makes me feel alive and brings value to my life.”

We all crack open beers and offer cheers to the Olympic Peninsula, which we agreed is one of the most fantastically inspiring places any of us has visited. Though it is no longer untouched by modernity, the Olympic Peninsula remains a sanctuary for those seeking asylum from the pressures of contemporary living, and its wiles are best experienced from the seat of a motorcycle. 

Culver puts it best: “We live in this world full of complication, where you’re constantly having to choose your words carefully and negotiate this crazy world we live in, but anytime you get out into a place like this, it’s full of honesty. If it’s cold, you’re cold. What you see is what you get, and there’s no complication to it. You get to be in this situation where all of those complications are gone, and as humans we crave that kind of honesty.”

As much as we want to descend into the town of Port Angeles and find somewhere to warm our bones, none of us moves an inch, unaccepting of the impending return to normality and life’s complications. We let the rain slap against our skin as we search through the darkened trees to find grazing blacktail deer and squint to find the massive blue glacier at the peak of Mount Olympus, and in that moment, we shared the significance of standing in one of the most awe-inspiring places in America. We never would have been able to leave if we didn’t believe that when we lay down in our beds that night, the dream would continue even after we closed our eyes.