Hoh Rainforest

We awoke to a very misty morning on the Olympic Peninsula (go figure).  We really cannot complain too much though because we’ve had great weather up to this point and the cool rain was a nice change from the near one hundred degree heat.  Since it was raining we figured we’d go to the rainforest.  The cool thing about Olympic National Park is that it is very rugged, and something like 96% of the park is designated wilderness, which means it, will never be developed.  This means there are no roads that cross the park, only a major highway that skirts it and has different entrance points.  Because of this we had a little drive ahead of us to get to the opposite side of the park for the day’s hike. 

The drive was absolutely beautiful.  A good portion of the drive was along Cresent Lake, which is this amazing deep aqua color and looks like it should have a Loch Ness Monster living in it.  We eventually arrived in the rainforest, which was amazing and rainy.  Everything was covered in some sort of moss or greenery including the streambeds.  We did a few hikes around the Hoh Rainforest and checked out the Hoh River.  The river is all glacial runoff so it ends up being this crazy blue-grey color.  Sorry to focus so much on the varying shades of water coloring we have seen on this trip, but it is something that has to be seen to appreciate. 

Pretty much every sign in this little rainy logging town had something about “Twilight” on it so Robbie had Beth google the town to find out what was up.  Since the two of us are part of the population that have not read these teenage vampire books and seen the subsequent movie, we were surprised to find out they all took place here.  There are even mock “proms” at the local high school for teenaged girls willing to pay.  Makes us feel old to be in the dark on cultural phenomena.