Olympic National Park: Boulder Creek Trail to Olympic Hot Springs

May 28, 2015
2 min read

Deep in the heart of Olympic National Park in the northwest corner of Washington State, I feel like I've stepped into technicolor. Coming from a place of desert landscapes, the vivid colors of green everywhere you cast your gaze almost makes up for the gray skies.

Because it's constantly damp it seems, everything is oozing with life. Trees, shrubs, moss, bugs, slugs. There is water cascading from everywhere and on the entire five mile hike to Olympic Hot Springs and back, the sound of rushing water trailed us.

Our original intent was to drive the two or so hours to Hoh River Trail to hike through the rainforest that gets about 12 feet of rain a year. We got derailed by the stunning Elwha River and decided to stay in the Elwha Valley instead. Which is just as fine, because right where we reached the hot springs was a rainforest, albeit a smaller one, with moss dripping from its branches like melting wax from a candle. There were thick carpets of moss on rocks that I bet if you slept on one, you wouldn't feel the hard surface at all. There were fallen trees, collapsed from natural causes, taken over by moss overgrowth, its branches swarmed by micrograsses giving it the appearance of tangled tentacles of octopus huddled in a group hug.

And the smell of the mountains, the river, the ancient trees, the sulfurous hot springs, of moisture oozing and leaking out of everywhere. How could one begin to describe that?

I have never in my life felt like I've been swallowed by a rainforest before. The massive trees, the even bigger mountains, made me bemuse in my smallness and insignificance. Yet again in the wilderness, relative to the power and grace of nature, I am put in my place.