The Hoh Rain Forest

No trip to the Olympic Peninsula would be complete without a visit to the Hoh rain forest.  It is named for the Hoh tribe of Native Americans.  It is also somewhat ironic that HOH is the chemical symbol often used to designate water.  This area receives around 140 inches of rain a year.

 As you might imagine, there are many huge trees here, like this big Sitka Spruce.

 Witches hair grows everywhere.

 Often the witches hair is joined by moss and ferns such as these growing on a living tree.

 This area was full of large big-leaf maples.  It was so green it was almost surreal.  You almost expected an elf, wood nymph, or vampire to spring out of the bushes. Parts of the Twilight movies were filmed near here.

 Here, a huge Sitka Spruce has fallen.  We were able to walk off 190 feet before the tree was cut to accommodate the trail.  It was still at least three feet in diameter at that point. 

 Trees such as the one above become nurse trees as they decay.  The abundance of rain in these areas quickly leaches nutrients from the upper soil layers, thus the importance of the nurse trees.

 Here are some larger trees that started on a nurse log years earlier.  You often see more or less straight rows of trees that give evidence of the contribution of a nurse tree to the flora (and fauna) of the area.  These rows are know as collonades.

 Eventually, the nurse tree decays away.  Here a goose pen straddles the last remains of what must have been a much larger nurse tree.

Eventually, the nurse tree decays completely away leaving large trees such as this one.

Old trees also fall across living trees causing them to form unusual shapes.  It appears that a tree that has since largely decayed away fell across this maple when it was young causing it to form an arch.

Coming and going we passed through Forks, Washington where some of the movie "Twilight" was filmed.  Sadly, the View House, where the prom scenes were shot, burned this summer.  It was across the Columbia River from our house.  It was also the scene of the retirement party for Mike and Penny.  We watched the fire from our back deck.