Olympic National Park – Early To Rise

We’ve spent the last six nights along the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula at an RV park sandwiched between coastal strips of Olympic National Park. Over the years, we’ve canceled several trips to the park (when life interfered), so we’ve been pretty excited to finally be here.
Olympic National Park encompasses nearly a million acres of the Olympic Peninsula, including glacier-capped mountains, old-growth temperate rain forests and miles of scenic coastline. Annual precipitation ranges from 100-170 inches of rain per year.

We really wanted to spend time in the park’s Hoh Rain Forest where we hoped to do some hiking. It’s one of the most popular spots in the park. Because parking is limited, it is suggested that visitors arrive early to avoid long waits (possibly an hour or more) at the entrance kiosk. Unfortunately, that meant an early morning for me.

After a little over an hour drive, we arrived at the park entrance about 8:30 and we easily found parking…but it was filling up fast! The Hall of Mosses hike was pretty crowded at first, but walkers soon spread out and we enjoyed it at our own pace.

Next we tackled The Spruce Nature Trail, an easy 1.2 mile loop through the rainforest. We learned that the rain forest floor is so dense with vegetation that new trees have a difficult time growing a root system. Nurse logs, fallen trees that have begun to decay, provide nutrients and a platform for root systems allowing saplings to take hold. We saw multiple examples of this throughout the park.

Be sure to pack a lunch if you visit. There are no food services within the Hoh Rain Forest area of the park.
The Hoh River Trail extends 17.4 miles into the back country, paralleling the Hoh River. The map showed several campsites located deep along the trail which explained the numerous backpackers we saw. We walked for a while, searching for the elusive waterfall. Perhaps it didn’t exist…we didn’t really see much of the river either, so when the trail took a deep plunge, we turned around.

We moved on today, arriving along the northern boundary of the park for the next six nights, but we have a few more adventures to share from our West Coast visit. Be sure to come back soon!