Entrance station · Olympic National Park
Handle passes, permits, and questions before the rainforest trails.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Olympic Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Olympic National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Olympic audio tourRecorded for this area
A Squirrel’s Night Glide“Flying squirrels live in these forests, but their nighttime habits make them easy to miss. They travel between trees by gliding, with a loose sheet of skin stretching from each wrist to its ankle.”
Plays on the road 0.2 mi from Hoh Entrance Station in the Parkwolf Olympic Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Hoh Entrance Station is the staffed entry and fee checkpoint on Upper Hoh Road, on the way to the Hoh Rain Forest area of Olympic National Park. Stop here to buy an entrance pass, ask staff for information, or handle permits. The visitor center and rainforest trailheads are farther up the road.
A separate, wheelchair-accessible restroom sits beside the station. There is no food service in the Hoh Rain Forest area, and the closest gas station is 31 miles away, so plan food and fuel before heading in from U.S. 101.
The rainforest is the destination beyond this booth. The Hoh area averages about 140 inches of precipitation a year, supporting mosses and ferns across Sitka spruce, western red cedar, bigleaf maple, and Douglas-fir. When large trees fall, their trunks become nursery logs that feed new growth as they decay.
Wildlife
710 sightingsOlympic MarmotMost seen around 11 AMSighting map
30 sightingsHumpback WhaleMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
42 sightingsGrey WhaleMost seen around noonSighting map
23 sightingsMountain LionMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
71 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
306 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 11 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Olympic. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ChallengingSouth Snider-Jackson Trail10 mi · 8 hr · 0.1 mi awayA remote ridge crossing with a hazardous Bogachiel ford.
EasySouth Fork Hoh River Trail9.2 mi · 4.5 hr · 3.4 mi awayA long rainforest walk to the South Fork’s riverside end
EasyMini Rain Forest Trail0.2 mi · 9 min · 4.9 mi awayA quick loop past a bubbling creek, mosses, ferns and bridges.
EasyHall of Mosses Trail0.8 mi · 54 min · 5 mi awayA moss-draped maple arch and a creek bridge in a short loop.
EasySpruce Nature Trail1.3 mi · 45 min · 5 mi awayA short Hoh loop for nurse logs and river views.
ChallengingHoh River Trail34.8 mi · 20 hr · 5 mi awayRainforest for miles, then a steep climb to Glacier Meadows.
ChallengingHoh Lake Trail29.4 mi · 15 hr · 5 mi awayA rainforest approach leads to a steep, exposed climb and subalpine lake.
Sight · 4.7 mi awayHoh Rain Forest Entrance SignA quick photo of the Hoh's roadside arrival sign.
Campground · 4.8 mi awayHoh Rain Forest CampgroundMossy old-growth camping, with a few riverside sites.
Visitor center · 4.9 mi awayHoh Rain Forest Visitor CenterStart here for ranger help and two mossy forest loops.Parkwolf’s Olympic ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
