Olympic in one day: the Hoh at opening light, Rialto Beach on the ebb

Forks

1. 6:30 am1

   Breakfast at the Forks Coffee ShopForks

   Opens at 06:00, feeds loggers, and is the last real breakfast before an hour of forest road. Fill the tank in Forks too — there is no fuel up the Hoh valley.

2. 7:20 am2

   Drive the Upper Hoh RoadForks

   About an hour: 13 miles south on 101, then 18 miles up the Upper Hoh Road, the last stretch slow and pot-holed. The road has washed out and closed the rainforest for months at a time in recent winters — check the park's road status page the night before, not the morning of, since there is no signal past the turn. Cost is the $30 seven-day Olympic vehicle pass. The visitor center lot fills by about 10:00 in summer and there is no overflow.

3. 8:30 am3

   Hall of Mosses while the fog is still in itForks

   Three quarters of a mile, flat, and the whole reason to be here early — low side light through the club moss at 08:30 is the shot, and by noon the canopy goes flat and grey. The maple grove about 200 yards up the loop is where the moss curtains are deepest.

   3 min walk · 0 m
4. 9:40 am4

   Spruce Nature Trail out to the river gravelForks

   1.2 miles from the same trailhead and far quieter than the Hall of Mosses; it drops you onto the Hoh River gravel bar with the glacier-fed braid in front of you. Elk use the flats here at both ends of the day. If you have another hour, walk the first mile of the Hoh River Trail instead and turn round at the second footbridge.

5. 11:30 am5

   Back to Forks for lunch and suppliesForks

   Forks Outfitters is the town's grocery, hardware and everything else; build a beach lunch there rather than eating at Rialto, where there is nothing at all. Buy the tide table here if you have not printed one.

6. 1:20 pm6

   Drive out Mora Road to Rialto BeachForks

   Half an hour and a hard left at the La Push junction — Rialto is on the north side of the river mouth, First and Second Beach are on the south. People book a hotel expecting one and drive to the other.

7. 2 pm7

   Rialto Beach to Hole-in-the-Wall on the ebbForks

   Held because the tide, not you, decides whether this happens. Hole-in-the-Wall is 1.5 miles north up cobble and driftwood; you want to be walking out on a falling tide and through the arch below about +3 feet, checked against the NOAA La Push table for the exact day. Ellen Creek, half a mile up, is the point of no return — it and the headland both flood, and people get pinned. Two hours before low is the safe window. The tide pools on the far side at low water are the best on this coast.

8. 6:15 pm8

   Dinner at Creekside, Kalaloch LodgeForks

   Forty minutes south of Forks on 101 and the only sit-down dinner with an ocean in the window. Reserve, or eat early. The Tree of Life — the spruce holding itself over an eroded gully on its roots — is a two-minute walk from the Kalaloch Campground bluff and best in the last light.