Twilight in the Rainforest

Almost as soon as we hopped in the tent last night it began to rain. Not very heavy as it had on previous nights but this rain was constant. It would continue into the morning and set the stage for our day of exploring the rainforests. What else is one to expect when camping in a rainforest... honestly. Our first stop was to the Hoh Rainforest, probably the best known and

most visited rainforest in the park. There a total of 3 rainforests in the national park as far as we could tell, at least 3 accessible ones. As we drove through Forks, Washington Katie noticed something odd about the downtown area, the word "twilight" seemed to be everywhere. She

speculated that maybe the Twilight movies had been filmed here, but I dismissed it and suggested that perhaps it was just a coincidence or the town was known for really beautiful twilight hours or something. We carried on into the Hoh rainforest and proceeded to hike both of the trails in the area; the infamous Hall of Mosses and the Spruce Nature Trail. Both were equipped with interpretive signs which made the hiking slow going. We were also in awe of the beautiful hanging mosses for which these temperate rainforests are known for, so we were in no rush.

Save the lush green forest and its draperies, the most prominent things we saw along the trail were banana slugs. I thought that the ones we had seen on our hike the day before were big, but I was mistaken. That or these were just monsters! There were several

ranging from 5 to 7 inches long and one that was even as big as Katie's hand! It was incredible to see them so big and abundant, literally almost everywhere you looked. We endured the rain our entire visit and just as we walked into the parking lot it was as if someone hit the off button, the rain stopped and the sun came out, producing a mist off of the ground from all of the evaporating moisture. We shed our rainproof gear and hopped in the car moving on to our next rainforest location. We had planned to visit the Queets rainforest next but when we got to the entrance we discovered that the road was closed 7 miles down, cutting off access to all of the hiking trails. We took the road down the 7 miles anyway to just get a taste of the rainforest. The road was a very small dirt road and most of the time was only one lane. The best part about the drive was the ride back when we got to see beams of light shining through to small meadows on the forest floor. Unable to do our hike at this location, we decided to move on to the final rainforest, the Quinault Rainforest. Here, we had the entire trail to ourselves, which was awesome! We arrived a little later in the day, about 6 p.m. The ranger station was already closed, but we decided to hit the trails anyway. There were 2 at this location, both relatively short, but both very unique. The first one we took lead us to an old homestead that is apparently slightly still

in use, at least for tourist benefit. We weren't lucky enough to see anything going on and at first we thought that we had walked up on someone's country home and weren't sure if we should continue on for fear of trespassing. Eventually we decided that it was the only way to go and that we would have to risk an unfortunate encounter which never came. As we were walking

through the orchard we spotted 2 elk near the forests edge. We stopped and watched them for a bit and then began to walk through the ranch itself. After looking around a bit we headed back into the rainforest and spotted

another 2 elk in a clearing about 100 yards away. After having our fill of wildlife viewing, we continued on the trail, eventually running into other trail we had planned to hike. Right away we were aware of numbered posts along this trail which we assumed was part of a self-guided nature trail. We hightailed it to the beginning of the

trail, both in order to look for a guidebook and also because we noticed that the sun was beginning to set and we wanted to make it to the Pacific to watch the sunset. The pamphlets were right at the trailhead and Katie assumed the role as our glamorous tour guide, going back through the whole trail stop by stop narrating all of the information that was offered to us. After our quick run through of rainforest life, we hopped back in CJ and headed for

the coast. As we drove we realized that we were going to miss the sunset itself, but we were still hoping for a great view, which in my opinion, we got. Best of all, when we got back to camp we noticed that it hadn't rained in a while, nor did it show any signs of doing so soon. Again, on our way back through Forks, we noticed odd signs involving the word "twilight." This time it was more direct, "twilight tours" and "welcome Twilight fans." This was too much for Katie and she was convinced that the films must have been filmed in the area and

this small town was milking it for all it's worth. I was still skeptical, that is until the next morning as we were passing through town for the last time and we noticed black silhouette cutouts of the characters along the side of a building, at this point I too was convinced. We would find out the next day that it was the setting for the novels and thus films, though most of the movie was filmed in BC where these sort of things are more cheaply done. Anyway, when we got back to camp, we built a fire and stayed up late into the night, enjoying the cloudless night and bright moon, being sure to burn all of our firewood, since this would be the last day of camping for quite some time.