This Sitka spruce near Lake Quinault stands 191 feet tall, and the flat loop next door is made for fall

Picture a tree as tall as a 19-story building, with a trunk you’d need a small crowd to hug. That’s the Sitka spruce at Lake Quinault, listed on Olympic National Park’s record-tree roll as a national champion at 191 feet tall. The resort that looks after it bills it as the world’s largest spruce, and standing under it, nobody is going to argue.

Pair it with two of the easiest walks in Olympic National Park’s Quinault Rain Forest and you’ve got a perfect fall day. Big-leaf maples hang over both trails, so October is when the green gets some company.

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Start with the giant

The spruce’s circumference measures 58 feet 11 inches, and it’s 191 feet from root to crown. A foot bridge leads you across to it, which is a nice bit of theater: you walk toward something enormous and it just keeps getting bigger. Bring a camera with a wide lens, because there’s no fitting the whole thing in a phone shot from up close.

Then walk it off in the maples

Both walks start from the Quinault Rain Forest Ranger Station, about 5.7 miles up North Shore Road from US-101 at Amanda Park. The first is the Maple Glade loop, a half-mile stroll through big-leaf maples with 13 marked stops, a handful of short wooden bridges, and a gentle grade. It’s the one to pick if you’re traveling with kids, a stroller, or someone who has declared they are “done hiking.”

Extend it onto the Kestner Homestead loop, a flat 1.3-mile circuit on compacted gravel. It passes an old homestead, a barn with an apple tree beside it, an orchard, and the original entrance road, and crosses Kestner Creek on a 40-foot bridge. If you only want the homestead and back, the out-and-back from the kiosk is 1.1 miles round trip.

Why fall is the move

Here’s my one firm opinion: skip the crowded rain forest trails and do this stretch in autumn. Maples are the rain forest’s color-changers, so you get gold and green in the same frame, and the loops are short enough that you can be back at the car before the drizzle gets serious. Rain is part of the deal out here, so pack a real rain jacket.

One logistics note: the park says parts of the Maple Glade trail may flood from October to May. Check conditions with the Olympic National Park website or the ranger station before you go, and keep your plan flexible if the creeks are running high.

Make it a bigger loop

If you’ve got the rest of the day, the Hoh Rain Forest is the better-known cousin on the other side of the peninsula, and a very different pace of day. Quinault is the quieter pick for a first rain forest fix, and the two loops here are about as easy as rain forest walking gets.

So, are you a giant-tree person or a maple-leaf person? Tell us which one you’d pick first!

Trip tips: grab a rental car to get out here, lock in your hotel before the good rooms are gone, or skip both and book a camper van instead.

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