IT’S ONLY FEBRUARY, but our Olympic Peninsula tourist season has already started.

While profiling and stereotyping is wrong, when you see an RV the size of the space station towing an SUV, headed west in the rain and wind of a rainforest gully-washer, you can assume they are tourists.

You may ask yourself, why would anyone want to go on vacation in a rain storm? There could be many answers to this question.

Tourists are crazy. That’s why we put a season on them in the first place. They come here seeking one of the rarest things on Earth, solitude in nature.

The best place to do that is in Olympic National Park. It has been designated an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site for its abundance of wildlife, world-record sized trees and the diversity of exquisite, pristine ecosystems. And yet, it’s the little things that sometimes seem to leave the biggest impression.

While tourists all want to see a bear, an elk and an otter, things the locals might take for granted, sometimes the tourists will get all excited about seeing a banana slug. And why not? There are no slugs in Kansas.

As someone who works in the trenches of the tourist industry, fishing, rafting and eco-touring, I am often asked where is the best place to see these critters? And, where is the most beautiful place in Olympic National Park? I tell them the Hoh Rainforest.

I may be prejudiced, since I live here, but the fact is the Hoh Rainforest is the most popular destination in the park. 104,176 vehicles passed through the Hoh River fee station in Olympic National Park boundary in 2024. Times that by the $30 entrance fee and you get some idea of the economic value of tourists on the Olympic Peninsula.

Add the cost of getting here, the airlines, rental cars, motels, meals and shopping, and multiply that across the Olympic Peninsula from Port Townsend to Aberdeen and you get some idea of the tremendous impact tourists have on our regional economy.

But you have to keep the roads open to get the tourists here. Duh.

If the road to the most popular tourist attraction on the Olympic Peninsula is washed out, tourists will go somewhere else.

The Upper Hoh Road leading to the Hoh Rainforest was damaged this winter and so far, no government agency seems anxious to fix it.

Who can blame them? In the current political climate, they face an uncertain future with a lack of funds, personnel or appreciation for the jobs they do.

Residents and business owners on the way to the Hoh Rainforest were told they do not pay enough taxes to justify fixing the road. This is a highly debatable point.

Go back and read the part about how many people pay $30 to drive up that road.

Then, remember how many millions of dollars-worth of the finest old-growth spruce, cedar and fir timber on the planet from private and state timberlands came down the Upper Hoh Road since it was built in the 1930s. The timber was taxed to fix the roads. Where did that money go? It went to fix roads somewhere else.

Meanwhile, the road to the Hoh Rainforest still has one lane open.

Why can’t we have a stoplight for one-way traffic to keep traffic moving?

There were five stoplights for culvert replacement projects on U.S. Highway 101 south of Forks last summer.

People drove U.S. Highway 101, also known as the Olympic Loop, anyway.

Fix the road. We’ll thank ourselves later if we do the right thing now.

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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.

He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.