Hurricane Hill

The Olympic marmot lives on this hill and nowhere else on earth. Ice cut the peninsula off long enough for it to become its own animal.

Continental glaciers came down around the Olympics during the last ice age and left the range standing alone. Water finished the job: the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north, the Pacific to the west, Hood Canal and Puget Sound to the east, and a wide river valley to the south.

What got stranded had time to go its own way. The Park Service counts the marmot, four other mammal subspecies, two trout, and a dozen plants. The full list runs to beetles, millipedes and a keeled jumping slug.

The marmots spend up to eight months underground. The young come up in July, which is when the meadows on Hurricane Hill are worth walking.