Day Three
It rains about 12 feet a year in the Hoh Rainforest. Depending on your particular origins that may not seem an impressive figure, but allow me to reintroduce this data point through this Texan’s particular perspective. Twelve feet is some serious rain. Really. For example, I attended freshman orientation at UT and walked away with my diploma before I saw that much rain in Austin. I voted in two presidential elections and did not see that much rain. I met, dated, and wed my beloved Mooshy before I saw that much rain. I thought a lot about the rain.
I thought about the rain as we meandered the forest trails, inaccurately guessing the height of the 300-foot spruce trees that towered over us, and as we marveled at the nurse logs on the forest floor. I thought about the rain as we forged the piercing cold Hoh River that flows through the valley carved thousands of years earlier by massive glaciers, and when we watched a family of elk take sips from the same flowing water that still wet our toes. I thought about the rain when we peered over streams so flawlessly clear they were nearly invisible, and when we reached out to touch moss that drapes and floats over the forest’s branches like seaweed. I thought about it as we built our fire, and cleaned our faces and fingers of sticky s’mores. I thought about how everything there—everything we could see and touch—was made greener, wetter, colder, taller, stronger by those 12 feet of rain.