The Hoh Rain Forest and Lake Ozette, Olympic National Park

Thursday- Saturday, June 12-14, 2013

We reluctantly left South Beach Campground under an overcast sky and drove up the coast and then 19 miles inland to the Hoh Rainforest campground. The drive in was fascinating as the forest got darker, damper, mossier, and fernier! We had a few small showers after leaving South Beach, but by the time we arrived at Hoh, it was dry. Finding a great campsite along the oddly blue-colored Hoh River, we noted the sign that warned of an elk attacking tents. The sign said to pick up palm sized rocks to throw at him and yell, “Elk Begone!”. There were two rocks left on our picnic table from the previous campers.

Campsite on Hoh River

Milky blue glacial silt in the Hoh River

Looking upstream from our camp

We walked over to the visitor center, which was closed, again, and then onto two short trails through the area, the Hall of Mosses, and the Hemlock trails. Both trails wound through the old growth forest filled with huge hemlock, spruce, and other fir trees. The epiphetic (air plant) moss was draped in curtains from the tree branches, and especially heavily on a grove of maple trees. Everything looked like it should be absolutely dripping with moisture. The problem was that it wasn't. Greg and I had on our hiking boots and rain jackets, expecting to get quite wet. As the sun broke through the trees, we got so warm, we were down to our tee shirts. The dirt and gravel path under our feet was dusty. The ferns had a lower layer of brown dead fronds. I told Greg that we needed to lodge a complaint with the ranger, (but the visitor center was closed that day), that we came to a rainforest and expected to get wet! A woman stopped us on the path to ask if we had ever been there before. She said she had last visited in the 70's and it was very wet. We replied that we were also surprised that it was sunny and dry.

When these trees fell, they surely made a noise!

Club Mosses everywhere

Club moss on Big Leaf Maple

Snag with shelf fungus

We never found a ranger to ask, but are wondering if the drought in the rest of the west is also affecting the Olympic Peninsula, the wettest area of the country. When we entered the park 3 days before, other campers commented that they had just spent a week here and never saw rain. Quite unusual! The dry spell ended literally as we walked back onto our campsite. It rained on and off the rest of the day and night.


One night in the dreary forest was enough. We drove farther north. On our way to Lake Ozette we passed through the town of Forks. The enormously popular Twilight series of tween-age vampire novels and movies was set here, and has become a pilgrimage spot for fans. Stephanie Meyer, the author had never set foot here when she wrote her novels, and the movies were not filmed here. We saw a few stores selling Twilight themed merchandise, otherwise I expect the town is a bit disappointing to fans. There's not much to it but an old, drab logging town.


We made our way back out to the remote northwestern section of the coast. There are only a few roads from the interior that allow you to access the coastal area, so we chose the one to Lake Ozette. We found the small popular campground along the lake shore, and managed to find a space before the 15 sites filled up for the night. We decided to relax the rest of the afternoon and hike the 3+ mile trail to the coast the next morning. Walking to the nearby ranger station, we checked the tide tables for the next morning, so that we would arrive at the beach close to low tide and see more that way.

Lake Ozette

Ozette Camp

Local Resident

Okay, Saturday morning the low tide was about 8:45. Greg didn't nag me too much to crawl out of the bunk early, but it was still well after 9 am before we started hiking. We decided to take a lunch and make a day of it, so it took a while longer to get ready. (I know, excuses, excuses...) We hightailed it down the boardwalk through the lush, mossy forest. A great, easy hike, with just a few sections of steps, it didn't take us long to reach the shore. The tide was still pretty low so we could explore a bit in the tidal pools and check out the sea lions we could hear barking before we even got out of the woods. They were far out on the islands, it's amazing how far there barks carry.

Much of the Point Alava trail is boardwalk

Unusual pink moss

Foxglove

The beach and one of the seastacks at Point Alava

We checked out the interesting hike-in campsites under the evergreens along the edge of the wide beach. Couldn't talk Greg into backpacking back in for the night. Of, course he knows who would get stuck carrying most of the weight, even if we did have the gear with us! Walking along the beach we came to an island that we could walk to at low tide. We walked over and looked for sea otters and spotted a bald eagle on some rocks and then he soared overhead for the rest of our time on the beach.

The hike in camps are just inside the tree line

Hike-in camp furnished with Japanese tsunami debris

Boulders and tide pools

The barking seals were basking on rocks and sand bars out to the islet in the background.

Anemone

These little crabs were very alert about anyone who might be a hungry bird

What's a good beach day without a picnic? We walked farther north up the coast until we found some very large washed up trees and turned one into seating and enjoyed eating and seeing sea lions, otters, the bald eagle, and a momma deer and two babies walking down the beach. They crossed over to the island just as the tide began to close it off and disappeared into the underbrush. We watched ravens digging up the hard packed beach sand and finding skinny red worms to eat.

Picnic on a comfy log couch

 

The three deer walked in waves up to their knees out to this islet.

Prints from mama deer and two fawns.

As the tide swallowed up the small islands and re-submerged the tidal pools, we hiked back up the beach and into the woods to return to Lake Ozette. The banana slugs were busy crawling across the trail. Several families passed us on the narrow boardwalk trail as they hiked toward the coast to stay over in the campsites along the beach. The kids looked none too happy! We passed a Mom and Dad with four tween-aged girls, jabbering away, one in a Twilight teeshirt. (“We'll take you to the Twilight store in Forks, if you go camping with us...”)

Small snake under beach log

Today's ferocious wildlife - Banana Slug racing across the trail

The weather was dry all day with a few patches of sunlight, but overnight started raining again, so Sunday morning we left Lake Ozette, and decided to drive until we found dry, sunny weather.