Hoh rainforest, Washington State

The Hoh rainforest is in the middle of Olympic national park, Washington State. The drive from La Push beach through the forest is quite remote. First thing we had to decide was where to pitch our tent for the night. We went past a couple of places, but they were deserted. Seeing a man with his camera out by the side of the road just before the state campsite, we pulled over to see what was happening. There was around 10 or so elk grazing by the river, it was so cool. We then drove into the visitor's car park and into the campsite. There were a couple of trailers around and we stopped by the first one to watch a huge bull elk (picture below) wandering around the campsite eating the vegetation. With the bear issue from Ucluelet still fresh in our memory, we were apprehensive about camping out in remote places and especially deserted campsites. A walk was needed to freshen ourselves and get us thinking more clearly. There are 3 hikes here. Two short ones (ancient grove/hall of mosses) and a longer one that goes straight over the hills and mountains as far as Hurricane Ridge, where we visited some days before. The ancient trees were amazing and the incredible amount of mosses on the trees and vegetation made the trees almost hard to identify. Sitting having lunch at the car park we saw a group of young adults on a kind of learning, training exercises. So we took the opportunity to camp near them, so we could have strength in numbers. A trailer guy popped over and gave us some elk sausages which were very tasty. Settling in for the night we soon fell asleep and when we awoke the huge bull elk was so close to our tent that we could almost smell him. We took many pictures and videos of him before heading back into the forest for another long trek amongst the big moss covered trees and elk.Read more