Gas in Forks runs higher than in Port Angeles or Amanda Park, so top off where it's cheaper if you can — but this is the last dependable fuel, food, and phone signal before the Hoh Rain Forest and the Pacific beaches, so fill up and finish your download here regardless. The town has two lives: a working timber economy in the rainiest corner of the lower forty-eight, and a second wind it never saw coming from a bestselling novel that was set here sight unseen. Boone tells how one gave way to the other.
That cluster of buildings up ahead, low and weathered under the gray, is Forks — and for the next stretch of coast and rain forest, it's the most important town on your map. This is the main settlement of the wet west side, and it's your last reliable everything. Last dependable gas. Last grocery, last hot meal, last cell signal worth the name before you turn off toward the Hoh or run out to the beaches at La Push. So if your tank is low or your phone hasn't finished downloading this tour, Forks is where you fix that. Past here, the signal collapses for good. Now, Forks lives two lives, and you'll feel both of them just driving Main Street. The first is the real one: this is a working timber town in the rainiest corner of the lower forty-eight — the rain forest valleys just inland pull better than twelve feet of rain in a normal year, and the town itself stays soaked most of the calendar. For generations its whole heartbeat ran on logging the great firs and hemlocks off the surrounding national forest. Look for the log trucks loaded down with fresh-cut timber; they still run this highway hard, and you'll hear them downshift coming through town. The second life is the strange one, and I'll let Boone spring it on you, because it's better that way — a little mill town that became, of all things, a pilgrimage site for readers from all over the world. Two lives, one main street, both soaked to the bone. Ranger Boone Merrick has the whole tale. Ease back, keep rolling north through town, and let him tell you how Forks lost one life and stumbled into another.
Photo: Konrad Roeder (Kgrr) · CC BY 3.0
Forks is a small Washington logging town that bills itself as the gateway to Olympic National Park's wild west side. Platted in 1912 and incorporated in 1945, it boomed on timber from the 1950s through the 1970s, once claiming the title 'Logging Capital of the World.' The Forks Timber Museum preserves that heritage with logging tools and pioneer exhibits. Set in a damp valley between the Hoh, Bogachiel, and Calawah rivers, it is one of the rainiest towns in the contiguous U.S.
Today Forks is the practical basecamp for visiting the Hoh Rain Forest, the Pacific beaches at La Push and Rialto, and the Quinault and Sol Duc areas, offering the area's main concentration of lodging, fuel, and groceries. The town also draws fans of Stephenie Meyer's 'Twilight' novels, set in Forks for its gloomy, rain-soaked atmosphere; the books triggered a tourism surge that still brings visitors to filming-inspired sites around town.
- • Location: on US-101 on Olympic's west side, roughly 13 miles north of the Upper Hoh Road turnoff and about an hour from Port Angeles.
- • Use Forks as a supply stop: it has the area's main lodging, fuel, and groceries before the long, service-free drive into the Hoh.
- • No park fee to visit the town itself, but you will need an Olympic National Park pass ($30 per vehicle) for the nearby Hoh and other park entrances.
- • Plan time for the Forks Timber Museum and Twilight-themed stops; the town is a year-round base, though expect frequent rain, especially fall through spring.
- • Pets are welcome around town but remember they are prohibited on nearly all Olympic National Park trails, so plan dog logistics before day trips.