Last updated May 2026
I’ve had the opportunity to visit many Zoos in several different states. Whether it was a state I had lived in, or one I was visiting.
This experience was vastly different. Located Southeast of Olympia, in Pierce County, is a Nationally Accredited Zoo, Northwest Trek Animal Park. After a 45-minute drive from home, we were ready to experience this amazing park in all of its glory! Plus, didn’t hurt that we picked a sunny and cool day to visit.
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Northwest Trek Animal Park
The park offers many opportunities to explore and visit animals. We chose to book a Keeper Adventure 90-minute Tour . General booking, for non-park members, is $115/person 5 years and older. You get to select the date and time upon booking. Weather can be hard to predict in the area so make sure you’re prepared for whatever the day ends up looking like!
Gear Used For This Adventure
Thankfully, for this adventure, I just needed:
- Light T-Shirt
- Backpack to store my camera gear
- Hiking boots
- Rain resistant hiking pants
- Light rain jacket
Our particular adventure would allow us to see as much of the 725-acre park in a short amount of time. Not only that, but we would be able to watch free-roaming animals. There are also plenty of exhibits inside the park that doesn’t require you to purchase an additional ticket to experience.
Keeper Adventure Tour
As mentioned above, this tour is 90-minutes long. It’s suitable for any and everyone, including kids. After checking in at the ticket booth, we met our Tour Guide in front of a Jeep. Which would be our mode of transportation for the next hour and a half!
Side note: I would highly suggest attending in late-August. Not only did we get to see deer, buffalo, mountain goats, and caribou on our short little adventure but we got to witness the bull elk shedding the velvet from their antlers.
Our group had about 10 people, including 2 kids, that were all able to load into the Jeep for our outing. The Jeep is open-air so prepare for inclement weather, depending on the time of year you choose to visit! Since we were off roading for this trip, things got a bit bumpy at times!
The great thing about this park, is that the animals are use to having visitors in the area. We even had a bison get close enough to the Jeep that he scratched himself on the side of the car to get to an itch! It was impressive being able to feel the entire vehicle shift back and forth from the strength of this animal.
Inside the Exhibit
This adventure doesn’t stop at the Keeper Adventure tour! If the price of the tour is a concern or simply isn’t an interest for you, you can always tour inside the park.
We were able to quickly visit the river otter, raccoon, and badger before making our exit. We were quickly getting hungry (it was about noon at this point) and ready to find some food. We made our exit out of the amazingly large and beautiful park, but not before stopping by the gift shop! After purchasing some souvenirs, we were back on the road to head home.
Overall Thoughts
We had an absolutely amazing time! The Adventure Tour was an amazing way of seeing as much of the park as we could in a short amount of time. We fully intend on visiting the park again and visiting the exhibits we didn’t originally get to visit. Thankfully, we are not terribly far from the park that the trip is easily doable in a day.
Thanks for joining me on this adventure and I hope you get the chance to visit this amazing park! Until next time, adventure awaits! Be sure to email subscribe so you can catch my next adventure!
