The Hall of Mosses is an easy 0.8-mile loop from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, climbing about 80 feet onto the trail. It winds beneath bigleaf maples heavily draped in club moss, passes a spur into a moss-covered maple grove, and reveals nurse logs and colonnades where trees grow in straight rows from long-rotted fallen giants in one of Earth's finest temperate rainforests.
This is the one people drive across the state to see. The Hall of Mosses, an easy loop of just eight tenths of a mile with a gentle little climb of eighty feet to start, beginning right at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center. A short rise lifts you up onto the loop, and then the forest does the rest. You walk under an archway of bigleaf maples so heavily draped in club moss they look like green curtains hanging from every limb, swaying a little if any air moves at all. A spur leads off into a grove of those moss-covered maples where the light itself goes soft and emerald and the whole world seems to hush. Go slow and quiet and let the layered green settle over you. It's a short, flat, easy stroll, and it's the very thing you came across the mountains for. Step out and wander the loop, or stay in your seat and we'll keep going.
Photo: Ron Clausen · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Hall of Mosses trailhead sits at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, the end-of-the-road hub for exploring this corner of Olympic National Park. From the parking area you reach a small plaza where three short trails branch off: the Hall of Mosses loop, the Spruce Nature Trail, and the start of the long Hoh River Trail. Restrooms, exhibits, and ranger information (when staffed) make it the natural orientation point before stepping into the rainforest.
This is where the pavement of the Upper Hoh Road ends after its 18-mile run from US-101, so it functions as both trailhead and basecamp, with the adjacent campground and picnic area nearby. Roosevelt elk are often seen in the meadows around the center, and the braided Hoh River runs just beyond the trees. Because everything funnels through this one lot, it is also the spot most affected by summer parking shortages and entrance-line backups.
- • Location: at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, the terminus of the Upper Hoh Road, about 18 miles off US-101.
- • Parking is limited and typically fills by mid-morning in summer; arriving before 9 a.m. greatly improves your chances of a spot.
- • Visitor Center hours and staffing vary seasonally and can be reduced; restrooms are generally available even when the building is not staffed.
- • An Olympic National Park pass ($30 per vehicle, 7-day) is required; check the park's Current Road Conditions page since the access road has flooded and closed in recent years.
- • Pets are prohibited beyond the parking lot and on all trails from this trailhead; the immediate plaza area is fairly level but the loops themselves have roots and uneven footing.