Welcome to the Hoh Rainforest. This part of the world has some of the only temperate rainforests, and if you haven't seen one before, prepare to be amazed. I certainly was. Here I am in cool, wet weather, and I'm surrounded by a lush abundance of green plants. If the plants were recognizably temperate, I would have thought I was in Central America or Southeast Asia.

The Hoh Rainforest has a visitor center where you can pick up maps of the trail. There are two trails, a popular one with lots of educational signs and activities and a more solitary hike that brings you through different levels of the rainforest and to the river. The short, main trail was very crowded, with many tourists stopping to take pictures at every new vision. I was certainly one of them! The plants here are huge, even the ferns are bigger than your average human. Moss hangs from giant trees. Logs extend for what seems like a mile. From the signs, you can learn all about the ecosystem. Unfortunately, some people are very pushy and want to have the whole path to themselves. That's what you get for visiting a national park in the summertime I guess.

I also enjoyed the other trail, which had less informational sign postings, but gave the visitor a chance to apply their previously learned knowledge at their leisure.

This park is easy to visit in a few hours. I actually wished the trails were longer. It seemed, as in most places within the national park, that you had a choice of easy, quick hikes or extremely long hikes, with nothing in between. It was also cold and rainy (yes, in the rainforest, rainy). Due to the unusually wet weather that year, we did get to see lush greenery in the forest that most summer visitors miss. At the same time, it was less comfortable to be in one's own skin when you are soaked to the bone. Close

It was a busy place the day we were there, so we were anxious to hit the trail and lose the crowds as soon as possible. We normally like to go to a Ranger program before hiking to learn about the area, but this time we got the minimum critical information from the rangers and went on our way. We decided to hike two different trails – the Spruce Nature Trail, which was 1.3 miles, and the Hall of Mosses, 0.8 miles. When we were done with those, we wanted to keep hiking, so we headed up the Hoh River Trail for a bit. This trail is 17.5 miles long altogether, and leads eventually to the summit of Mount Olympus. We just went until we found a nice lunch spot on the riverbank.

The thing that amazed me most about the Hoh Rainforest is that every surface of everything is covered with vegetation. Monster trees were covered in hanging vines and lush mosses. One old stump looked like a planter, filled with a wide variety of greenery growing from it and overflowing the edges of the "pot." In the rainforest, many young trees grow on top of decaying dead large trees called "nurse logs." There could be 20 seedlings or more growing on one log, and again, every inch also blanketed in moss, fungi, vines, and grasses.

Some of the trees in the rainforest were so huge, it would take five people to get their arms around. I felt as small as an ant looking up at these giants. I was astounded by what an overabundance of rain could do to plants. It’s just water, after all, but it created these majestic beauties. I bet you could easily look out to the ocean if you could get to the top of one of them!

Unfortunately, our rainforest adventure had to end way to soon. As with everything else we had seen on our long weekend on the peninsula, I wanted more time and knew that I had to return one day. What kind of impressive flowers and shy wildlife were waiting for me farther into the rainforest? There must be so many secrets hidden in the maze of vegetation and grandfatherly trees…