Elk bugle in the stormy distance. Welcome to Washington's Hoh River Rain Forest, wettest place in the Lower 48. Life here is not so bad though, when you're snug under a well-pitched tent, with steam rising from the coffee pot and a hot breakfast shivering its way to your stomach. Mile by mile on shadowed trails, naturalist Tim McNulty and canopy ecologist Nalini Nadkarni show you and Host Annie Getchell the natural workings of the Pacific Northwest rain forest. You'll backpack beneath a luxuriant canopy of hemlock and maple, with squirrels chattering from the branches.
Crystalline streams tumble down curtains of green moss.
The rich scents of life hang heavy in the air, and the trail to discovery stretches ahead like an emerald tunnel. Summer and early autumn. Backpack water retention. Annie's pack weighed about 50 pounds at the beginning of her trip. When the Anyplace Wild crew was here, they saw 6 inches of rain in one day.