The Upper Hoh Road leaves Highway 101 and runs roughly seventeen miles upstream along the Hoh River into Olympic's western rainforest. The west-facing slopes here receive about two hundred inches of precipitation annually, ranking among the wettest locations in the contiguous United States.
You've just turned off the highway and onto the Hoh River road, and the whole world is about to change. For the next seventeen miles you'll be following the river upstream, deeper and deeper into one of the rainiest forests on the planet. These west slopes catch around two hundred inches of rain and snow a year, the wettest place in the lower forty-eight. Roll your window down if it's not pouring. The air gets greener from here, thicker, and the trees just keep getting taller the farther in you drive.
Photo: Ron Clausen · CC BY-SA 4.0
