Forks Washington on the Olympic Peninsula

A large section (20 blocks) of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display in Forks from March 1-6, 2010.  The display is located at the Forks High School Auxiliary Gym, 261 South Spartan Avenue.  The goal of the AIDS Quilt project is to provide a creative means for remembrance and healing, to effectively illustrate the enormity of the AIDS pandemic, to increase awareness of HIV and AIDS throughout the general public, to assist others in providing education on the prevention of HIV infection, and to raise funds for community-based AIDS Service Organizations (ASO's).  Volunteers are needed to help with the quilt display--please contact the Forks Chamber of Commerce today at 360-374-2531 (or toll-free at 1-800-443-6757) or by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to get further information about how you can participate.

This little trail has something for everyone!

• Wide, level and only about 0.3 mile long
• Located in Klahowya Campground--right off US Highway 101 at about milepost 212--convenient place for a quick break
• Borders scenic Sol Duc River--winds through old homestead site
• Crosses historic Snider-Jackson trail
• Interesting and informative interpretive signs along the way

→Our photo gallery slideshow takes you on a quick tour around this fun loop trail.

 

It's encouraging to see that the West End now has a paved 6-mile section of the Olympic Discovery Trail in place. Although it's still "closed for construction," this first-class section of trail extends through the forest from the Camp David Jr. Road end of the Spruce Railroad Trail, on Lake Crescent, to the top of Fairholm Hill. The Olympic Discovery Trail itself will eventually go the entire 100-mile distance from Port Townsend, through Sequim, Port Angeles, Joyce, Forks and LaPush, to the Pacific Ocean.

What a perfect way to start off the New Year!  This article from the Peninsula Daily News runs down some of the ice-hot local tourism statistics for 2009.  Among other things, the numbers show that over 70,000 people stopped in at our Forks Chamber of  Commerce Visitor Information Center last year.  That's about a 400% increase from the record we set in 2008!  Wow! Let's keep it going--now is an ideal time to plan a trip to Forks--there's more to see and do than ever before.  We're looking forward to setting new records in 2010.

We're about to get the same weather technology here on the West End of the Olympic Peninsula that just about everybody else takes for granted--Doppler radar! This is a big deal for mariners and outdoorsmen, who rely on accurate weather information for their survival.  Up until now, the Olympic Mountains basically blocked the radar from Seattle, making it difficult to forecast our coastal weather.

Wow! You’d expect to find huge t-shirt factories lining the streets out here in the West End of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, given the number of Forks and LaPush t-shirts available online. We’re not really sure who’s making these shirts, but we suspect most aren’t actually from around here.

We appreciate all of the attention–and the more the merrier–but there are locally produced Forks, LaPush and Twilight-related products available, including the Forks Chamber of Commerce’s own line of shirts and stickers. Your purchases help support community-minded Chamber activities, including operating this web site and our web cams, staffing our Visitor Information Center in Forks and funding scholarships for graduates of Forks High School and Quileute Tribal School.

But, just for fun, here’s a small sampling of some of the images available on t-shirts and other products out there:

The Olympic Peninsula Community Museum never ceases to amaze us. This colorful photograph of beautiful fall foliage in the Olympics, which is part of the Olympic National Park Flora collection, is just one small example of what you’ll find there. The online museum is organized into fascinating exhibits — each representing a different aspect of our richly diverse West End culture and history. While there are just too many worthwhile exhibits to mention, we particularly enjoyed learning more about the Mountaineers’ 1920 Outing to Mt. Olympus (what hardcores!); Fannie Taylor, Postmistress of Mora; and the Great Forks Fire of 1951. The archived images of Hoh Tribe Baskets and Artifacts also caught our eye. And that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s available at this interesting resource!

Forks and the entire West End of the Olympic Peninsula extend hearty “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” wishes to world-famous mountain-climbing twins Jim and Lou Whittaker, who turned 80 yesterday!! This article in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer (written by David Andriesen with photo by Scott Eklund) touches on some of these local heroes’ incredible life achievements. While, in the interest of the family’s privacy, we’re not going to say much, we’re proud to say that Jim and his wife, Diane Roberts, are Olympic Peninsula residents and have ties with Forks and the West End. It would be difficult to imagine anyone, more than Jim and Lou, embodying the true spirit of the Pacific Northwest–fun, adventure, health, appreciation of the outdoors, entrepreneurship, statesmanship, philanthropy, leadership–and so much more. We’re hoping we can keep up with them for the next few decades. Here’s to many, many more!!

We get so many interesting photographs from our friends all over the world that we thought we’d try something new.We’re inviting Twilight fans–and anyone else interested in Forks and the West End–to send us a photo of them wearing a souvenir item, such as a t-shirt, for example, .Just to be clear about this, the “West End” is basically the Forks, LaPush, Clallam Bay, Sekiu and Neah Bay areas of Washington State, USA.From time to time, we’ll put our favorite shots online as a blog post.Extra credit will be given for the most exotic or unusual locations involved.Not only will you be world-famous if we use your shot , but we’ll also send those selected a “promo pack” from Forks, with stickers, brochures, maps and other fun Forks/LaPush stuff.