Obstruction Peak is a summit in the

Olympic Mountains The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus is the highest at ; however, the easter ...

and is located in

Clallam County Clallam County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 77,155, with an estimated population of 78,209 in 2021. The county seat and largest city is Port Angeles; the county as a whole comprises the ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

state. It is set within Olympic National Park and is situated at the eastern end of Obstruction Point Road which is a narrow eight mile dirt road on Hurricane Ridge. The road ends below the south slope of Obstruction Peak, and a short hike leads to the summit. Its nearest higher peak is Elk Mountain, to the northeast. Obstruction Peak is a major triple divide point such that

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

drains into tributaries of the

Elwha River The Elwha River is a river on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. From its source at Elwha snowfinger in the Olympic Mountains, it flows generally north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Most of the river's cou ...

, Dungeness River, and Morse Creek. All three thence empty into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Climate

Set in the north-central portion of the Olympic Mountains, Obstruction Peak is located in the marine west coast climate zone of western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Most weather fronts originate in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and travel northeast toward the

. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks of the Olympic Range, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall ( Orographic lift). As a result, the Olympics experience high precipitation, especially during the winter months in the form of snowfall. Because of maritime influence, snow tends to be wet and heavy, resulting in high

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and earth ...

danger. During winter months, weather is usually cloudy, but due to high pressure systems over the Pacific Ocean that intensify during summer months, there is often little or no cloud cover during the summer. The months July through September offer the most favorable weather for viewing or climbing this peak.

History

It's believed that a road-building project in the 1940s was expected to run a full-circle loop from the Elwha River to Hurricane Ridge and Deer Park, then on to

Port Angeles Port Angeles ( ) is a city and county seat of Clallam County, Washington, United States. With a population of 19,960 as of the 2020 census, it is the largest city in the county. The population was estimated at 20,134 in 2021. The city's har ...

. The project was stopped at Obstruction Point because of loose shale and inherent instability of the slopes here, hence the ''obstruction''.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Obstruction Peak
* {{cite web , url=http://www.nps.gov/olym , title=Olympic National Park , publisher=National Park Service Mountains of Washington (state) Olympic Mountains Mountains of Clallam County, Washington Landforms of Olympic National Park North American 1000 m summits