Quinault Rain Forest Loop
Quinault, WA
The Quinault Rain Forest features a network of trails through old-growth temperate rainforest along the shores of Lake Quinault. The area contains several record-holding large trees including a massive Sitka spruce and western red cedar. The half-mile Rain Forest Nature Trail and the longer Maple Glade Trail wind through cathedral-like groves.
Photography Guide
- Best Time
- morning
- Crowds
- Moderate
- Shot Types
- widedetailportraitlandscape
- Best Seasons
- springsummerfallwinter
Author's Comments
Quinault is a forest that does not photograph easily, and that is part of what keeps me coming back. The scale is the problem. A Sitka spruce two hundred feet tall and fifty feet around does not fit inside a frame in any way that communicates what it actually is, and the moss draped from every branch flattens into mush in any light that is not carefully considered. So I have stopped trying to photograph the bigness. I look for smaller things now. A November morning is when this forest shows itself best. The rain has usually been falling for hours or days, and the trails on the south shore go quiet in the way only a rainforest can - not silent, but cushioned, the sound of water hitting moss instead of bark. The Maple Glade trail in particular goes almost theatrical when the mist is sitting low among the bigleaf maples and the licorice ferns are at their most saturated green. The light, when it arrives, comes down in shafts through the canopy and lands on a single trunk or a single fallen log carpeted in something that looks almost engineered. I shoot details here. The base of a cedar where it meets the forest floor and the line between tree and ground becomes negotiable. A single fern unfurling against dark bark. The spruce, when I attempt it, I shoot from far enough back that a person can stand at its base for scale, because that is the only honest way I have found to convey the size. Bring waterproof everything. The forest does not care whether you stay dry.
Gallery
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Quinault, WA
Lake Quinault Lodge Shoreline
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Merriman Falls
Merriman Falls is a 40-foot waterfall visible directly from the South Shore Road along Lake Quinault. The falls cascade over a mossy rock face surrounded by dense temperate rainforest. No hiking is required, as the waterfall is steps from a roadside pullout.
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Hoh Rain Forest
One of the largest temperate rainforests in the U.S., the Hoh Rain Forest receives over 12 feet of rain annually. Massive Sitka spruce, western red cedar, and bigleaf maple trees are draped in thick curtains of moss and ferns. The Hall of Mosses Trail and Spruce Nature Trail offer accessible loops through the old-growth canopy.