Qualla: Hoh Rainforest

Hoh Rainforest: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sam Beebe, CC BY-SA 2.0. One hundred and twenty-nine inches of rain falls here every year. That is nearly eleven feet of water, more than anywhere else in the contiguous United States, and it shows in every square foot of the Hoh Rainforest. Moss hangs from bigleaf maples in curtains so thick the branches beneath disappear. Sitka spruce and western hemlock grow to staggering dimensions, some exceeding 300 feet in height and 23 feet in diameter. Nurse logs, the fallen trunks of old giants, sprout entire new forests along their length. This is the Olympic Peninsula's masterwork, a temperate rainforest that rivals any tropical jungle for sheer biological extravagance.

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Image: Sam Beebe | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hoh Rainforest: A Valley Carved by Ice

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kashyap Hosdurga, CC BY 2.0. Glaciers shaped the Hoh River valley thousands of years ago, grinding through rock to create the broad, low-gradient floodplain where the rainforest now thrives. The Hoh people, the valley's original inhabitants, knew this landscape long before any European cartographer drew it o...

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Image: Kashyap Hosdurga | CC BY 2.0

Hoh Rainforest: The Green Cathedral

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Olympic National Park, Public domain. The dominant trees are Sitka spruce and western hemlock, but the forest's character comes from what grows on them. Epiphytes colonize every available surface: mosses, ferns, and lichens like lettuce lichen, which requires the cool, moist conditions found only under old-growth can...

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Image: Olympic National Park | Public domain

Hoh Rainforest: Elk, Slugs, and Spotted Owls

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Gallager, CC BY-SA 4.0. Roosevelt elk graze the meadows and riverbanks, their herds sometimes numbering in the dozens. The northern spotted owl hunts from the old-growth canopy above. Black bears, cougars, bobcats, and coyotes move through the understory. On the forest floor, the banana slug works its s...

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Image: Ken Gallager | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hoh Rainforest: The Road That Almost Stayed Closed

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adbar, CC BY-SA 3.0. In December 2024, flooding on the Hoh River washed out portions of Upper Hoh Road, the only vehicular access to the rainforest and its visitor center. A bomb cyclone the previous month had weakened the embankment between road and river. Previous storm damage had been repaired wit...

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Image: Adbar | CC BY-SA 3.0