• Olympic: Three Parks in One

    Olympic

    National Park Washington

  • Olympic Hot Springs Road Closed

    The Elwha Valley's Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed to public entry beyond the Altair Campground during removal of the Glines Canyon Dam. Olympic Hot Springs is not accessible from the Elwha.

Historic Range in the Elwha - Sockeye Salmon

Historic Range:
Since they prefer to spawn near lakeshores and tributaries of lakes, sockeye salmon had a much smaller range in the Elwha River than the other anadromous species. Historically, they would travel up the Elwha to Lake Sutherland and spawn along its gravel shores. The lake’s shoreline has the potential of supporting over 3,000 spawning fish. Construction of the Elwha dam made Lake Sutherland inaccessible to adults attempting to swim upstream. Fisheries biologists anticipate that "land-locked" sockeye, or kokanee, currently living in Lake Sutherland, will provide the source for new anadromous sockeye runs once the dams are removed.

Diagram:
—The red line represents the theoretical historic range of sockeye salmon in the Elwha River.

 
Historic sockeye
Historic range of sockeye salmon in the Elwha River.
 

Click here to learn more about sockeye salmon!

 

 

 
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This webpage was made possible in part by a grant from Washington's National Park Fund.

Did You Know?

star-shaped purple flowers growing in a crack of a rock

That the Piper's bellflower is unique to the Olympic Mountains? Named after an early Olympic peninsula botanist, the Piper's bellflower grows in cracks and crevices of high elevation rock outcrops.