Elk in the Hoh Rain Forest
— — the animal that makes the moss make sense.
Not only on a wall.
“Roosevelt elk move through the Hoh in small herds, mostly at the edges of the day. The trees are Sitka spruce and western hemlock, hung in club moss so dense it filters the light to a green that has no equivalent. The animals graze in the river-side meadows along the Hoh, then drift back under the canopy. They are the largest elk in North America and the reason this forest looks the way it does — without them, the understorey would close in. The Hall of Mosses trail loops them through the same ground walkers use; most visitors do not see them, but most visitors find their tracks. The rain is steady. The forest is held quiet. — from the studio
Elk in the Hoh Rain Forest, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Hoh Rain Forest is a temperate rain forest on the west side of Olympic National Park in Jefferson County, Washington, drained by the Hoh River off Mount Olympus. The valley receives between 140 and 170 inches of rain a year, among the highest totals in the contiguous United States, and supports old-growth Sitka spruce and western hemlock as well as bigleaf maple draped in spike moss. The Hoh Visitor Center is reached by an 18-mile spur off U.S. Highway 101 and anchors two short loops — the Hall of Mosses and the Spruce Nature Trail — and the start of the Hoh River Trail, which runs east toward Glacier Meadows below Mount Olympus.
The elk in the Hoh are Roosevelt elk, the largest subspecies of North American elk, with bulls reaching 1,100 pounds. The subspecies is named for Theodore Roosevelt, and the park itself was first set aside in 1909 as Mount Olympus National Monument largely to protect this herd. Roughly 5,000 Roosevelt elk live in Olympic National Park, the largest unmanaged herd of the subspecies anywhere. They feed in the river-side meadows and along the forest edge; the close cropping of the understorey is what allows the moss to dominate the lower canopy and gives the Hoh its open, cathedral character. Without the elk, the forest reads differently.
The Hoh is open year-round but reads most green in late spring and early summer, when the new growth comes in over the old moss. Elk are most often seen in the early morning and the last hour before dark, in the meadows along the Hoh River and at the forest edges around the campground and visitor centre. The fall rut, roughly mid-September through October, is when bulls bugle and the herds congregate; the sound carries down the valley at dawn. The road in is paved but narrow, and the park entrance station opens at 9:00 a.m. in season. The standard park entrance fee applies.