I had no idea there were so many National Parks in Washington State. We’d already hit Mount Saint Helens and Mount Rainier, and we weren’t done yet: It was time to see the rain forest. Olympic National Park was a bucket list item for me. I’ve always wanted to see the only rain forest in North America.
When we arrived in Port Angeles (gateway to Olympic National Park), it was hot, and hazy. Not cloudy – hazy. And the air smelled like smoke. We wondered what was up as we stocked up in the Port Angeles WalMart and moved on to the Visitor’s Center.
Normally people drive from that Visitor’s Center to the one up on Hurricane Ridge, as it’s a great way to view Mount Olympus. Olympic National Park has several webcams and in the Visitor’s Center we saw the Hurricane Ridge webcam up on a big screen TV.
The “view” was solid haze.
A Park ranger explained that there were fires burning in Canada, north of Vancouver. The smoke was drifting south and that’s what was causing the haze and the campfire smell.
So we passed on Hurricane Ridge. We drove on instead to Rialto Beach, which was also hazy, unfortunately, but still pretty amazing.
It was also crowded, although we lucked into a good parking spot. We left Bailey in the truck and went for a walk along the beach. Rialto Beach is famous for a rock formation called “Hole in the Wall,” which is just what it sounds like. A big rock wall with a hole in the middle of it – big enough to walk through – that has been caused by waves. I didn’t get a decent picture of it, mostly because of all the people, and I also found the other rock formations (also caused by erosion and waves) to be a lot cooler.
We also found… whatever this was. The ocean washes strange things ashore.
We camped for the night in a nondescript spot in Olympic National Forest. Honestly, we had a hard time finding a good site. The areas were pretty trashed, most of them having been used for shooting practice, as well as being covered in, well, trash. We finally settled on a gigantic pullout that at least was not littered with shell casings.
The next day we finally got to the rain forest. Hoh Rain Forest, to be exact. It was nice and humid, like I expected. It was also 90o, which I did not expect. We walked the Hall of Mosses trail, as well as the Spruce Trail. I got to learn!
First cool thing: moss grows on the trees here because everything mosses need come from the air. Seriously. It gets moisture and nutrients from the damp air. No need for soil. Neat!
Second cool thing: I found out why the big trees all have roots that look like this.
See, things break down rather slowly in a temperate rain forest. Fallen trees (which can take centuries to completely decompose) quickly become “nurse trees” for other organisms.
Moss, lichen, grasses, flowers, even new trees.
And as the new trees get bigger, their roots extend down around the nurse tree. By the time the nurse tree rots away completely, the roots of the new tree are big enough to support it.
We both thought the rain forest was pretty damn cool. Even though it was actually really hot that day.
We found a campsite right on the Hoh River that night, and it was fabulous. We had a scary incident along the way, though. I missed the turn to this camping area (it was not marked in any way, as sometimes happens), and so I found a pullout to turn around. There was traffic coming the other way, so when I pulled my U-turn I goosed it a little bit. I heard this weird thump. I checked my rear-view mirror to see how close that traffic was behind me.
And what I saw was Bailey, standing in the middle of the road.
I jammed on the brakes, shouted to Michael, and both of us jumped out of the truck. Luckily for us the vehicle behind us had stopped, and the four guys in it jumped out as well, trying to corral Bailey, who was kind of wandering around in confusion. We called to him and I swear I never saw that dog look more relieved. He came running to us. Somehow – miraculously – he seemed okay.
When we turned back to our truck I saw that the topper lid was open. My guess is that he fell into the lid when I hit the gas, and that’s what popped it open.
Needless to say, ever since I’ve been hitting the gas like an old lady.
On to more happy things, like our Hoh River Campsite:
Bailey really didn’t seem any worse for wear, so we threw the tennis ball into the Hoh River for him that afternoon. Our site was breezy and almost completely bug free. Overnight we heard elk calling to each other. In the morning I was treated to a fly fishing session.
I was reluctant to leave this campsite. But it was hot and the site actually had zero shade for most of the day. So move on we did, taking in Ruby Beach, which was was a lot cooler than the rain forest. I mean that literally – we wore jackets. Although we did warm up a bit hiking over this giant log jam just to get to the beach.
Once we got there, though, the views were pretty stunning.
There were driftwood “shelters” like this everywhere.
And there was some kind of film crew at Ruby Beach. The cameraman was wearing a wetsuit, and the actor (an older gentleman) was wearing some kind of military uniform.
At some point they filmed this guy walking into the surf. I’m sure it was supposed to be stoic, this old guy committing suicide. Or it would have been, if the actor hadn’t lost his balance and fallen. Hit hat fell off and he spent five minutes trying to get it back so they could resume the shot.
We spent the night at Campbell Tree Grove campground, a free campground 20 miles from anywhere. It was in the rain forest, though, so it was lush and dark. I had to break out my headnet for a while there as the mosquitoes got a little fierce at sunset.
No, the real problem was the rodents. We heard them outside pretty much all night long. And at one point Michael swore he saw a mouse crawling on the mesh window on his side of the tent. How did it even get up there? Not that it mattered – he knew what it was after: the chocolate bar he’d brought in as a late-night snack. He had to get up and put the chocolate in the cab of the truck.
In the morning I didn’t find any evidence of rodents in the cab. Or in the back. Believe me, I checked. But those little jerks chewed a hole in the sandbag we’d used to tie down the tent.
Oh, the joys of nature. Our next destination was pretty much a 180 from the rain forest, though: Seattle.