Maple Grove
- Bhumibol Adulyadej.
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One of our absolute favorite places from the Washington trip is the Hoh rainforest. It was a pain to reach as the entry point to the forest is located all the way on the other side of the peninsula from Port Angeles. This made the drive to the forest brutal and so we had to limit our hikes to the small trails. But once we started the hike, we realized how amazing this enchanted forest can be. We were in love with the greenery around us and rejuvenated just wandering around.
This panorama shot was one of my favorite shots from our short incursion into the forest.
- Blaise Pascal.
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COLOR version of this image
One of the coolest places we got to visit during our road trip to Washington was the hall of Mosses trail at the Hoh rainforest. The trail is pretty short and even but the trees are quite magnificent and at the same time little intimidating. We were there on an afternoon and pretty much had the whole section of the trail to ourselves.
One of the challenges in my photography is taking compelling images of trees. I have precious few images in my stream where single trees are the mail subject. As I was at the Hall of Moses trail and among some of the most majestic old temperate trees including bigleaf maples and Sitka spruces, I had pretty much no idea regarding how to capture them.
This image is a stitch panorama shot of about 3 images that were later cropped to a square crop. While I was processing the image, I noticed that the image felt rather bland with strong green tones overpowering every other visual element in the image. So just for kicks, I desaturated the image completely and I felt instantly great about the shot. Add in some minor contrast adjustment and I feel like the image looks way better than the original. I am curious to know what everyone else thinks about the image.
![Where Dinosaurs Come From [EXPLORED #14]](https://cdn.phoide.com/Thumbs/48641296673.jpg)
I spent some time in the Hoh Rainforest last week, and it felt like such a prehistoric place, I kept expecting a dinosaur to come out from behind one...
- African Proverb.
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Another shot from the beautiful Hoh Rainforest and the hall of mosses trail. The trail starts innocently enough until you come across the old big leaf maple trees that’s covered in moss and provide the visitor with some otherworldly visuals. The mosses on the trees do not damage the trees. However, the trees can fall by the winds in storms because of their shorter roots due to the abundance of nutrients and water in the forest. Many trees and mosses grow from and over the fallen tree trunks.
Along the trail there is a side path of 200 feet that leads to a grove of maple trees covered with epiphytic spikemoss (Source: Wikipedia). While planningvise this location was hard to reach I think my wife and I agree that we would need to come here again and allocate more time to this stunning rainforest to do it more justice.
Another of my tilt shift panorama images from my short visit to the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. It was such a wonderful place to...
- Charles Dickens.
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One of the key attractions of the Olympic Peninsula is the wonderful Hoh rain forest and the stunning loop trails that allow you to explore this amazing ecosystem. Growing up near a Tropical rainforest this was my first experience with a temperate rainforest and I was excited to check out the similarities and differences.
The NPS offer three well maintained trails here that can be taken to explore the rainforest at your own pace, due to the time constraints we took the Hall of mosses train which is about a mile long. There are two other trails, the Spruce Trail which is about 1.2 miles long and the Hoh River Trail which is about 17 miles long. We really hope to come back and do the other two trails someday.
I underestimated the distance we will have to cover to get to the entrance of the forest to our hotel room in Port Angeles and this was the first spot during the trip where we seriously wished for an RV as the next day we had planned to go for sunrise at hurricane ridge. So, we had to cancel our plans for a sunset at Ruby beach and head back early to get some shut-eye.
Ferns cover the forest floor, the moss covers everything else. The Hoh Rainforest is an enchanted place.
Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Maple Grove!
Most notably Sandeep Thomas.