Quinault is located in the southwestern area of the park about a three-hour drive from Port Angeles and one hour from Forks. Quinault also has several waterfalls that are very accessible from the road, including Merriman Falls along the South Shore Road. It’s 191-feet-high with a 96-foot spread. Quinault Rain Forest is home to the world’s largest Sitka spruce tree that is more than 1,000 years old. Quinault Rain Forest Park visitor walking Graves Creek Nature Trail in the Quinault Rain Forest NPS Public Domain Be aware that heavy rain and snowmelt make river crossings extremely dangerous, so check with the visitor center before you head out. For a much longer hike, try the South Snider-Jackson trail that is 11.8 miles and climbs 2,700 feet through the forest before dropping down to the Bogachiel River. 8-mile loop called the Hall of Mosses or the 1.2-mile Spruce Nature Trail that goes to the Hoh River. For those wanting to stretch their legs a bit more, try the. On these trails, you’ll discover moss and ferns carpeting the forest floor with towering conifers, bigleaf maple and vine maple trees creating a dense canopy overhead.Ī paved trail is. You can explore the Hoh Rain Forest by foot on a variety of trails for different abilities. It’s well worth the two-hour drive from Port Angeles ⎯ or the less than an hour drive from Forks ⎯ to see the Hoh Rain Forest. Hoh Rain Forest Tree in Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park Deposit Photos They become vibrant places for seeds to grow, small mammals to live and insects to burrow.
As you walk through the forest, stop and examine the nurse logs along the trails. Cat-tail moss and licorice ferns are two types of epiphytes you will find in Olympic.Īnother characteristic of temperate rainforests are nurse logs, which are the remnants of downed trees. Mosses, ferns, Douglas fir, red alders, Western hemlocks and Sitka spruce thrive in temperate rainforests, as do epiphytes, which are plants growing on other plants. In Olympic, temperatures rarely drop below freezing or go above 80F, enabling an incredibly unique ecosystem to grow. And more rain ⎯ 12-14 feet per year, to be exact in Olympic. Because of development, very few temperate rainforests outside of Olympic National Park exist along this stretch today.īut what makes a temperate forest? Rain. The park’s four rainforests are part of a huge Pacific Northwest rainforest that once stretched from Oregon’s southern coast to southeastern Alaska. How Many Rainforests Are in Olympic National Park? Are there rainforests in the United States? Yes! The west-side area of Olympic National Park in Washington is one of the best places in the world to see four temperate rainforest ecosystems.
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