Hoh Rainforest

The Hoh rainforest is located on the western side of Olympic National Park, on the Olympic peninsula in Washington. It is a pretty famous destination, and is typically packed with tourists in the summer. I was there on a Tuesday in March, and the parking lots were still mostly full. This could, however, to the extremely fortunate lack of rain that day. In a place that receives upwards of twelve feet of rain a year, I imagine that is a pretty rare occurrence.

Hoh rainforest is famous for enormous spruce trees and the thick layer of moss and lichen which seems to blanket every surface in the forest. Near the visitor center is a short trail called The Hall of Mosses, which gives a brief overview of the local environment. I went through that pretty quickly, but did enjoy the information about "nurse trees." Everyone has seen the phenomenon before, when a tree begins growing out of the stump or fallen trunk of another tree. In the forest here, however, it plays out to a much more noticeable degree. Enormous (around the order of 300' tall) trees fall, and equally enormous trees grow out of the fallen trunk. In the base of many of the older trees there is a void where an enormous log once lay, feeding the sapling through its decomposition. Here's a picture of such a tree:


This next set of pictures also shows a bit about the rampant growth of the area:


The first was, of course, a close up of the second. An example of how those nurse logs get started.

And here are a few from the Hall of Mosses trail:



After the Hall of Mosses, I set off up the Hoh River Trail, to separate myself a bit from the rest of the tourists and enjoy the park in peace and quiet. I hiked about 3 miles up the trail, and only saw 4 other people the entire way. Only two after I was a mile away from the parking lot. There were a lot of people there, but still very few willing to hike more than a couple miles.

The Hoh river trail runs 17 miles each way, so I was only barely dipping my feet by hiking the first 3 miles up, but there was still plenty to see. The river itself has a beautiful turquoise hue, and many little islets to explore. Here are some pictures of the river:



After doing six miles plus a bit of off-trail exploring, I was pretty beat and headed back to the hotel to plan the next day's hike. On my way, however, I was lucky enough to see a herd of elk grazing, something I was disappointed to have missed in the forest itself. Their scat was everywhere on the islets, but I didn't see one until the road out.


On the way out of the park it started pouring down rain, so I think I was very lucky to get in a dry hike. Probably doesn't happen all too often in those parts.

Here are a few more pictures of the park to close on:

Check out the scale of this tree. It doesn't look all that impressive until you notice my backpack sitting at the base.

Here's one of the phone booth at the visitor center. I think they might only have this phone booth so that tourists can take pictures of the impressive mound of moss atop it.


And these two are just nice photos from the trail: