The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the finest temperate rainforests on Earth, the tour's tentpole, and the heart of country that carries the Hoh people's name. The Hall of Mosses is an easy loop under a mile through bigleaf maples hung with club moss and Sitka spruce towering well over two hundred feet. It's busiest midday; an early or late visit means thinner crowds and softer light. Stay on the trail to protect the fragile moss and nurse logs, and bring rain gear in any season — this valley earns its name with around twelve feet of rain a year.
Park the car, and step onto the Hall of Mosses loop — it's under a mile, easy and flat, and it walks you straight into a world that feels less like a forest than the floor of a green ocean. The trail gives a little underfoot, spongy with a thousand years of fallen needles, and the first thing that hits you is the smell — wet cedar and rich, sweet decay, the valley composting itself back into more forest. Look around. Bigleaf maples stand draped head to toe in long curtains of club moss, hanging down like something underwater swaying in a current. Sitka spruce and western hemlock climb up past you, well over two hundred feet into the canopy, taller than a twenty-story building. Every single surface — bark, branch, the fallen logs, the very rocks — is furred over in green, layer upon layer of moss and fern and lichen, so thick that the light coming down through it all turns a soft, glowing emerald. And here's the thing nobody warns you about: it is quiet. Quiet in a way almost no place on this planet still is. No traffic, no hum, just the drip of water off ten thousand leaves and, somewhere, a bird. People come here and find themselves whispering without deciding to. Keep an eye low along the floor, too, for long mounded logs with whole rows of young trees marching straight down their backs — there's a reason for that shape, and Boone's about to give it to you. This is the heart of the whole tour, and it deserves a few slow minutes of standing still and letting your eyes adjust to all that depth. But before you walk it, stay with me a moment, because Boone has the bigger tale here — the story of how a place like this even comes to be, how this much water and this much life pile up in one valley on the edge of the continent. Settle in. He'll tell you how a rainforest happens.
Photo: Ron Clausen · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the largest temperate rainforests in the United States and the crown jewel of Olympic National Park's west side. Fed by 12 to 14 feet of rain a year, it grows a cathedral of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and bigleaf maples draped in club moss and ferns. Roosevelt elk move through the understory, and nurse logs sprout new generations of trees. The Visitor Center anchors short loop trails into this green, dripping world.
Protected since Olympic National Park was established in 1938, the Hoh sits in a glacier-carved valley along the Hoh River, which runs milky with glacial flour from Mount Olympus. The famous moss-laden Hall of Mosses grows here, alongside the longer Hoh River Trail that climbs deep into the wilderness toward Blue Glacier. The combination of huge old-growth conifers, hanging mosses, and constant moisture makes it one of the most photographed rainforests in North America.
- • Getting there: drive the Upper Hoh Road (about 18 miles) off US-101 south of Forks; allow 45-60 minutes from US-101 to the Visitor Center.
- • No timed-entry reservation is required to enter, but in peak summer the single entrance road backs up 1-2 hours and parking often fills by mid-morning, so arrive before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m.
- • Fees: Olympic National Park charges $30 per vehicle for a 7-day pass; a separate camping reservation is needed for the Hoh Campground in summer.
- • Upper Hoh Road is county-maintained and has a history of flood washouts (it closed from late 2024 into 2025 after a storm); always check the park's Current Road Conditions page before you go.
- • Pets are prohibited on all rainforest trails here; best visited late spring through fall, though the rainforest is lush and green year-round.