By the time we got on our way it was 12:45p.m., well after everyone else from the motel had left for the day. (We are not known for rising with the sun.) We stopped briefly at a viewpoint along US 101 (the only highway on the peninsula) to admire Lake Aldwell, which you can see in the picture to the left. You may ask if that really is a lake since it doesn't resemble a body of water. This is because of a breeze that smeared out the water surface. We could see ripples on the surface, but the exposure of the photo was long enough to smear the ripples.

Soon after we passed Lake Aldwell, we reached Lake Sutherland. We had to be content to see this lake through the trees as there was no viewpoint available to admire its clear blue waters. We soon got stuck in road construction traffic a couple of miles before Lake Crescent, so we were left gazing at the road, the traffic and the trees that lined the road. The prospect of visiting the Pacific Coast had greatly diminished by this time. About 20 minutes passed before we started moving again. Once we passed the construction, the road took us along the shore of Lake Crescent. This lake is immense, with deep blue water. It is a magnificent sight.

Once we were past Lake Crescent the road tended to follow the Sol Duc river. The scenery consisted of mountains covered with a mix of apparently pristine and logged evergreen forests. Beautiful wildflower patches in some areas added vibrant colours to the drive. Our only glimpse of snow covered peaks the entire day was when we passed near Lake Aldwell. The ubiquitous clouds kept forming and dispersing, covering and revealing mountain tops along the way. The road itself wasn't mountainous, so one could travel at a reasonable pace. We had been warned that delays due to recreational vehicles were as commonplace as the clouds, but luck was on our side since no RVs crossed paths with us.

We passed the town of Sappho without even realising it (I was surprised to find it on the map while putting together this account!). The next town, Beaver, was not as easy to miss as its fire station and post office are right alongside the highway, but it took all of 30 seconds to drive past Beaver. We also saw llamas and cows in Beaver. Eventually we reached Forks, a logging town, which is slowly re-inventing itself as logging operations decrease (See article in National Geographic July 2004). Now this is a huge town in comparison to Sappho and Beaver, but much smaller than Port Angeles. It had a few motels and restaurants. There were a sufficient number of restaurants that we would have found vegetarian food without much trouble. Forks even has public transport and a driver's licence facility. I was now forced to admit that we should have spent a night in Forks instead of basing ourselves in Port Angeles, as this would have guaranteed a visit to the Pacific Coast. I'll keep this in mind if we ever return to this part of the US.

Speaking of returning, we did return to Forks a few seconds after we left it so that we could fill gas. Although our rental car was fuel efficient, I started to worry about how much gas we would use on the slower rain forest road given that we hadn't filled any gas since picking up the car. The return trip afforded a more thorough look at the Forks municipal airport. This airport is about the size of 3 football fields, with two small runways. The amount of grass in this airport far exceeded the tarmac area. The most intriguing part about the airport was that there wasn't a single plane in sight. All the aircraft must have been stored in the hangars, and those were the size of a 3 car garage. Boy, those planes must have been small!

Despite our fascination with the Forks airport, we couldn't imagine ourselves in any of those small planes as we passed it for the third time, this time with the gas tank full. We soon left US 101 for Upper Hoh Road, the road that travels through the Hoh rain forest. One has to travel about 10-12 miles on this road before entering the park. Cattle graze in the private pastures alongside the road. Since they occasionally walk along the road, road signs warned us to keep a watch for them. After a few miles the road ran more or less along the Hoh river. The rain forest enveloped us as we drove. The famous tall evergreen trees of this forest, such as those pictured at upper left, are heavily laden with moss. Most of these trees are 200-300 ft tall and are about 6-8ft in diameter at their base. Not only are the trees impressive, the ground is also completely carpeted with plant life as one can see in the photo to the immediate left. The variety of green colour is astounding as is the density of the trees.

We arrived at the Hoh visitor center right at 4p.m., right when it closed. The ranger who checked our entrance pass (the pass is valid for 7 days) had warned us about this. While we hoped that we would have similar luck as with the gift shop at Hurricane Ridge, that was not to be here. So we had to be content with picking up a trail map from outside the visitor center and using that to decide where to walk. We dug into our bagel sandwiches at one of the picnic tables as we briefly examined the trail map and its description of the area.

We found out that this part of the park was at 570ft elevation. It was a lot warmer and moister than Hurricane Ridge. There had been the threat of rain most of the day, but apart from a few drops every so often we didn't experience the relentless rainfall that one reads about in other traveler's accounts of this region. I won't deny that I was happy to have dry weather to enjoy after sitting in the car for about 3 hours.

The Hoh visitor center is the starting point for climbing Mt. Olympus. People like us, who leave mountain climbing to the more adventurous and intrepid, could have chosen to climb to part of the way, to Blue glacier. But since that was a 17 mile hike, we chose to start with the much shorter Hall of Mosses trail. The two photos above are from this trail. One of the trees along this trail took on a bird-like appearance at its base as you can see in the photo.

More moss, this time on a tree with stilt-like roots.

Due to the thick carpet of plant life on the ground, trees have a hard time taking root. They often grow on fallen trunks, which are then called nurse logs. When the nurse log disintegrates, the roots of the tree take on a stilt like appearance as can be seen here. We saw several such trees. Often they are neatly lined up because they all grow on a single 300 ft long tree trunk. The roots of these trees are not very deep since they don't have to look far for moisture: it arrives in vast quantities from the Pacific Ocean.

The trail gives one the chance to measure the height of one of these trees because it passes alongside a fallen log that was almost 200 ft long.

A mossy big leaf maple tree. Moss grows to spectacular lengths on the big leaf maples because their branches are widely separated in comparison to the evergreens. We saw other plants growing within the moss. These plants are not parasites like in tropical rain forests. They don't seek nutrition from the tree/plant they grow on. On the other hand, research has shown that the big leaf maples put out roots on their branches to tap into the moisture that the moss traps.

Most of the old growth evergreen trees along the "Hall of Mosses" trail are Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and Western hemlock. Sitka spruce is usually found only along the coast where there is an abundance of moisture. We were about 15 miles from the coast, so this population of Sitka spruce indicated that the forest receives huge amounts of moisture to allow this species to thrive. According to the notes along the trail, the easiest way to identify the spruce trees is by their prickly needles. The western hemlock, on the other hand, has soft needles. It was easy enough to verify that spruce needles are prickly as their branches grow low enough even if the tree is 200 ft high. The western hemlock doesn't retain its low branches when it grows to 200ft, so identifying western hemlocks by the suggested method was not possible. But it really wasn't of much consequence to differentiate between the trees; knowing that they still exist is more important.

Vikram and me together with a big leaf maple tree and its mossy display. The leaves of a big leaf maple are bigger than a human hand. Other maples, like the sugar maple, silver maple and red maple which are more common throughout North American have leaves that are about the size of a human palm.

This forest was very quiet, as is the case with most old growth forests. There wasn't much animal or bird life in these forests, at least none that was easily visible. The only animal we saw was a Douglas squirrel. Vikram had pointed a bird out to me earlier at the picnic area. It turned out to be a crow, and I tried to convince myself it was a Pacific Northwest Crow, but I wasn't really sure. Most likely it was an American crow.

In addition to the Hall of Mosses Trail, we walked the Spruce Nature Trail. This trail reaches the Hoh river. It goes through terrain that used to be the past river bank and riverbed. The forest in the old river bank is more deciduous than evergreen and the trees were more widely separated from each other than in the "mature" forest. There are many red alder trees here, which stand out because of their white trunks. The old riverbed, which is now the riverbank had even less trees. Along the river bed were grasses of varying colours.

This photo shows the upstream view of Hoh river from the Spruce Nature Trail.

Detail of the above photo.

The Hoh river originates from glacial melt, so it has a milky white appearance as it contains pieces of ground up rock. The riverbed is strewn with smooth pebbles. In some places the pebbles are so thick that plants grow within them. This river is 50 miles long and flows freely (i.e. there are no dams blocking its flow unlike in the case of the Elwha river).

In recent times it has been flooding frequently in summer, causing much anguish to those who live on the one-square mile Hoh Indian reservation at the river's mouth. In the old days these people ("a band of Quileute Indian families" according to Halliday and Chehak's "Native Peoples of the Northwest" book) would have moved in response to the vagaries of the river. In today's world they are confined to the reservation and are not left with much choice but to almost live "in" the river when it floods as mentioned in this Seattle Post Intelligencer article.

Looking downstream at the Hoh river, from the Spruce Nature Trail.

The forest within the park boundaries has largely been unchanged for 5000 years. However, human presence on the Peninsula goes back 12,000 years. You can read more about humans on the Peninsula via this link on the park web page.

Detail of the above photo, showing the colourful grasses (they are a bit out of focus).

Another detail of the river, showing debris in the riverbed and the opposite bank.

It was around 6p.m. or so when we started back for Port Angeles. An owl emerged from the forest to lead us along the Upper Hoh road for a few seconds. This was an unexpected treat! S/he was big enough to be a great horned owl.

By this time we had decided to skip the Pacific Coast part of the park, even though it would have been possible to squeeze it in given the lengthy daylight hours. We didn't wish to return to Port Angeles after all the restaurants had closed, neither did we wish to drive these roads in the dark. We were content to once again enjoy the scenery on the return trip. By the time we passed Lake Crescent, the road construction work we had encountered earlier had finished for the day so we could proceed without any delays.

For dinner we went to Tendy's Garden Chinese restaurant. They had very tasty food, though it was a bit on the oily side. After dinner we walked around Port Angeles to stretch our legs.