What Is The Hoh Rainforest And Where Is It?
The Hoh Rainforest is a large,lush, green temperate rainforest teeming with life on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. This rainforest gets around 140 inches of rain per year, mush of it in the winter when flooding and sometimes intense storms can roll in off the Pacific Ocean into the area.
It is located within the boundaries of Olympic National Park. The Hoh Rainforest is located about 2 hours from Port Angeles, Washington and about an hour from Forks, Washington. Port Angeles is the largest town around with plenty of shops, auto repair places and dealerships and a variety of lodging options. Choice Hotels has a number of properties in town, Wyndham Hotels has one in the area and there are numerous other places to stay. Most often when I’d stay in Port Angeles I’d stay at the Toad Lily House Hostel, though it looks like it has recently closed.
From Port Angeles, you drive about 2 hours down past Forks, Washington along highway 101 to get to the Hoh Rainforest. If you will be visiting Olympic National Park, the Hoh Rainforest is one place you just can’t afford to miss! The Sol Duc Rainforest at Olympic National Park is really awesome too! If you are going to Olympic National Park, Seattle will likely be the airport you fly into. If you prefer to take in some of Oregon, then you may want to fly into the Portland, Oregon airport.
What Is It Like To Travel To The Hoh Rainforest At Olympic National Park Park?
The Hoh Rainforest is fairly remote and pretty far away from any major transportation hubs. It is about a 4 hours drive from the Seattle Airport and about a 5 hour drive from the Portland, Oregon Airport depending on which was you drive. If you are coming from British Columbia, Canada you can save yourself a lot of driving by taking the Black Ball Ferry from Victoria, BC to Port Angeles and then drive down to the Hoh Rainforest. You’ll save a lot of gas money and a BC Ferries toll if you take the ferry straight from Victoria, BC to Port Angeles, Washington.
I pretty much hate flying and air travel in general (at least for travel in the US and Canada). If time permits, I always drive. This trip out to the Hoh Rainforest at Olympic National Park, was part of an extended road trip to tons of national parks in the western US and Canada.
I’d driven all the way out there from Philadelphia and come up through Oregon. The drive up through Oregon and along the coast is spectacular. There were some nasty storms. If you will be driving anywhere around the Olympic Peninsula, it is important to pack some patience and and a sense of caution when driving. The rainstorms can be intense. Damaging floods can be a huge problem an delay your plans. Ponding on the roadways can create winter like driving conditions that will cause your car to hydroplane and lose control.
Once you get to the Hoh Rainforest, you’ll have the option to camp there, stay in Forks, Washington or Port Angeles or sleep in your car in some random spot. If you are really daring you might even consider staying in the Rainforest Hostel. We’ll have more on that place in the the “Story Behind The Photo” part below.
There are a number of easy trails in the Hoh Rainforest, some streams and of course lots of moss covered trees, ferns a lush green vegetation everywhere you look.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Of The Hoh Rainforest?
Photo opportunities abound in the Hoh Rainforest. If you are lucky you may see some wildlife in the area. In the absence of that, opportunity for rainforest landscapes and abstracts is plentiful.
In my opinion, the best time to photograph the rainforest or any forest is on a cloudy day. On cloudy days, the light in the forest is even. Bright cloudy days are great. As long as the sun is not shining down on portions of the landscape or abstract you are photographing, there will be no very bright washed out spots or sections of the photo you have to try to fix later.
In the Hoh rainforest there are huge moss covered trees. It’s not just a little moss like you might find on a tree in Pennsylvania but thick, long, moss that can hang feet down of a tree or a log. In a rainforest fallen logs rot. They rot a lot and they tend to rot fast. They’ll often serve as “nurse logs” from which ferns and sometimes even trees will start growing. If you venture over to the rainforests on Vancouver Island In British Columbia, Canada you will see a lot of this.
The key to getting wall art quality photos in the Hoh rainforest is a combination of getting good lighting and looking for unique ways to frame up the trees and landscape scenery in front of you. Alternatively, you can look for interesting growths, patterns or even macro photos among the trees, ferns, mosses and and anything else that is or was growing in the rainforest.
The one exception to the cloudy day “rule” noted above is a foggy, misty rainforest. This can occur at any time of day. If there is a hard overnight rain and the forecast for the next day is for sunny skies then get to the rainforest early. Sunlight will shine down through the forest but the mist rising from the rainforest floor will soften the light and often create the appearance of light beams through the forest. This scenario can make for awesome photos like this photo from the nearby Sol Duc Rainforest also at Olympic National Park.
While an overnight rain followed by a sunny morning may be the ideal time, most anytime the sun comes out after a hard rain, the opportunity for light beam shots is there. Sometimes the mist in the forest can linger for hours. When it does, you’ll have plenty of time to come up with all kinds of cool light beam photo compositions.
In this particular photo, there was a ton of moss hanging down with bright green ferns hanging down growing out of the same area. The small scene reminded me of the Dream Catchers often seen in Native American craft shops often made of feathers and other things. The lighting was even, there were light shadows and a nice mix of natural colors combined to make a nice abstract rainforest scene.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The Olympic National Park Hoh Rainforest?
When you go to the Hoh rainforest on a photo trip, you’ll want to take a decent DSLR or mirrorless camera with you. If you just take one lens (assuming you won’t be photographing wildlife that may or may not be there), a single zoom like the Canon 24-105 lens would be ideal.
In a rainforest there will be occasions when you’ll have no choice but to stand really close to something. That something would likely be a big tree. In those cases, it is handy to have a lens winder than 24mm. Something that goes as wide as 16mm or 17mm would come in handy there. In that case a lens like the Canon 17-40mm lens would come in handy.
There may be instance when you’d want a lens that has more than a 100mm zoom for closeup or macro photos of plants or textures in the rainforest. In that case, a lens that can zoom in up to 200mm or 300mm may be useful. That has never been a focus of my photography in the Hoh or any other rainforest but there have been times it would have been nice to have a bit more zoom.
If you’ll be shooting on cloudy days in the rainforest, it is a good idea to have and use a tripod. The lower the light, the longer the shutter will need to stay open. This is especially true if you want to shoot at a higher f stop to increase the depth of field in your photos. A shutter release cable can be useful for longer exposures as well. Finally, a circular polarizer may come in handy to take some glare off wet surfaces and hide or enhance any reflections in pools of water that may be incorporated in your photos.
What Is The Story Behind This Hoh Rainforest Dream Catcher Wall Art Photo?
During the winter of 2015-206 I was, as usual, wandering around national parks in the western United States. That winter I planned to spend most or all of the winter in the Canadian Rockies. The Hostel International hostel system in the Canadian Rockies had what they called a “Wilderness Season Pass“. For about $200, it got you UNLIMITED stays in the wilderness hostels in the Canadian Rockies. From November 1st until May 31st the following year, you could stay as many night as you wanted in the “wilderness” hostels in the Canadian Rockies. Can you imagine spending up to SEVEN MONTHS at Banff, Jasper and the Kananaskis area of the Canadian Rockies for only $200 in lodging costs? Crazy? Yes. Real? Yes!
Unfortunately I had issues at the Canadian border and was not able to take advantage of that pass during the winter of 2015-2016. That’s a story for another day. I had to come with with 4-5 months of alternative activities and Olympic National Park was one of those spots.
I’d been to Olympic National park a couple times in the past. I’d stayed in hostels in Port Angeles and down around the Hoh Rainforest in the past. This time I started out in the Port Angeles Wal-Mart parking lot during a few days of torrential rain storms. I literally sat in and slept in my car for about 3 full days because the rain was so intense there was nothing I could do. As usual, I was on a budget and sleeping in the car helped keep that budget in line.
By the time I got to Port Angeles my brakes were making strange noises so I went to the Port Angeles Subaru Dealer and told them I needed to get new brakes. Instead of just telling me how much they would cost, they gave me an “estimate”. It seemed really high. I got the brake job. They came back and gave me an invoice that was about 20% higher than the “estimated” price. I told them I thought that was ridiculous and they did eventually honor the estimate. If you can avoid Koenig Subaru in Port Angeles, definitely avoid that place. Who knows how much they’d try to rip you off if they can’t even stick to a brake job estimate.
Once that was out of the way I move on to the Toad Lily House Hostel an spend a few nights there. While there I spent some time wandering around the Port Angeles waterfront and the northern part of Olympic National Park including Crescent Lake and the area around there.
One I was feeling more rested, I departed the Toad Lily House and headed down toward the Hoh Rainforest area. I spent a few nights around some of the Olympic beaches and spent a few more nights in the car in random places where it seemed like I wouldn’t get disturbed.
The next stop was the Rainforest Hostel. The first time I stayed at the Rainforest Hostel I’d found it through the Hostel Handbook. The Hostel Handbook was an awesome guide to hostels all around the US. It has photos, reviews ans provided an idea of what to expect at any given hostel. The info on the Rainforest Hostel was a bit weird but nothing quite prepared me for what to expect there.
The Rainforest Hostel is actually one guys house. The house is deep in the rainforest. It’s an old house and like untreated logs that fall down in the rainforest, it is rotting. The place smell like mold. The kitchen is a mess, the living room is a mess. Anytime you are in the hostel you are literally within 20 feet of the guy who lives there.
There are two bedrooms for guests and a trailer or two where I think people sometimes stay. I guess they’d keep you out of the rain but that is about it. There are about 20 old Subaru cars scattered around the property. There is a garden outside the place.
When you go into the bedrooms where guests sleep, they smell like mold. It feels kind of gross in there because it is so damp. Everything is damp. The carpet is wet. Water must come up through the floor of the house. The mattresses in the guest rooms are used and from the local penitentiary. While I’m all for being frugal, I found that to be a little creepy.
Jim, the guy who runs the pace is generally a nice guy. Well, he has good intentions anyway. Sometimes he can be a real asshole. He’s a huge Bernie Sanders fan and you better be too. During this stay a guy from Microsoft somehow ended up at the Rainforest Hostel. Jim is so pro-Bernie that he ended up verbally attacking the guy from Microsoft. Any time I’d been there and there was some corporate type, they always checked out early. If you work for a large corporation you are the enemy in Jim’s eyes. He lets you know it. Sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly.
When you stay at the Rainforest Hostel, the nightly fee is optional. You pay what you can afford. I suspect if you didn’t pay you’d probably get kicked out. Along with payment you are more or less expected to do a “chore” or two. It can be weeding the garden, cleaning the bathroom or some other thing that Jim comes up with.
If all the above sound pretty crazy, well, it is. Why would anyone stay there? There is not really any other lodging in the immediate area. It also pops up online at around $10/night. When most people think of hostels who know anything about them they think of clean bunks, interesting people, a place to get a shower and have access to a kitchen. They don’t expect a cramped stay in someone’s wet, moldy house run by a guy who will verbally assault them if he thinks they are too corporate.
This time through I spent two night here. Most every time I’ve been there (3, maybe 4 times) I always swear I’ll never go back. Then when I’m in the area again it seems like $10 and and a verbal assault of some sort is worth it to actually lay down in a damp bed a local felon used to sleep on and shower with some spiders.
Anyway, I managed to tolerate spending a couple nights there. The day I checked in and the two days I spent there were spent at the Hoh Rainforest and Ruby Beach. The weather was rainy and dreary which made for good photos in the Hoh Rainforest but amounted to nothing at Ruby Beach.
In What Formats Is This Hoh Rainforest Dreamcatcher Wall Art Print Available?
This Hoh Rainforest print is available in sizes up to 40×60 inches on paper, canvas, metal, acrylic and wood. This photo printed on any material will look great hanging in an area with diffused lighting. The shiny or metallic prints like those on metal or acrylic or paper or canvas with a glossy or metallic finish will be brighter than matte prints on paper or canvas. If they will be hung in an area with bright direct lighting or somewhere with expose light bulbs then paper or canvas prints with a matte finish would be the best choices.
If you’d prefer something more along the lines of home decor then a shower curtain paired with bath towels could be a the perfect choice. If you would prefer something for the living room or bedroom a Sherpa fleece blanket paired with throw pillows could make a great choice.
This image comes on photo cases and very sturdy canvas tote bags that make great grocery shopping bags or even beach bags.
Finally, if you would like the challenge of assembling a puzzle, this image comes on jigsaw puzzles in 500 and 1,000 piece puzzles that can provide quite a challenge.
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