I have to be honest with you. I thought the Swan House was gonna be my favorite part of this trip. And the Swan House was incredible. But this drive. This DRIVE.
Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Forks was a peak moment of the whole trip for me and I was NOT ready for it. I've done a LOT of pretty drives (47 states in the van) and this one's different. There's something about being inside the actual forest Stephenie Meyer was picturing when she wrote all of this. Not a photo of it and not watching it through a window on the interstate. You're IN it. The trees are right there and the canopy's over you and the moss is everywhere and the light comes through in a way I've never seen anywhere else.
It's about 56 miles Port Angeles to Forks. Normally about an hour. We did NOT do it in an hour. We pulled over. We got out and stood in it. We turned the music up and then turned it all the way off because the quiet felt more right. We looked at each other and somebody said I can't believe this is real and the rest of us just nodded.
Don't rush it. The drive is the destination.
Edward drove this road at roughly the speed of something illegal, with the headlights off, which Bella found terrifying and also couldn't look away from. You are going to drive it slow. We didn't go as fast as Edward and that was the right choice.
What You're Actually Driving Through
The 101 on the Olympic Peninsula runs straight through the heart of Olympic National Park. Not next to it, through it. The forest comes right up to the edge of the road on both sides and sometimes closes over the top and you're driving through a tunnel of green.
These are old growth trees. Some of them have been standing over 500 years. Sitka spruce and western red cedar and Douglas fir and hemlock. They grow so tall and so thick the sky basically disappears. Moss covers everything, the ground and the fallen logs and the lower branches of the trees that are still alive. The whole forest looks like it's breathing.
And the AIR. You guys. You get out of the car and it smells like rain and dirt and something really really old and I don't have a word for it- it's just different. I kept making Chris pull over so I could stand in it haha.
This is the world Stephenie Meyer was writing about. Not a version of it. The actual place. You read the books differently after this drive and I didn't think I'd ever say that about a road trip.
Where to Pull Over
Lake Crescent
You won't be expecting this. You come around a bend and the lake just appears on your left and it stops everything. A glacier carved lake inside the national park with mountains and old growth forest coming right down to the water. Deep impossible blue green. Unnervingly clear. The mountains reflect in it on calm days.
This isn't a Twilight stop. It's just one of the prettiest things in the Pacific Northwest and it happens to be on your way. You stop here. You have to.
Been here since 1916. Historic and pretty and right on the water. Even if you're not staying, stop for something to eat or just sit on the porch and look at that lake. It deserves at least twenty minutes of your whole attention.
Flat 1.8 mile walk through old growth to a 90 foot waterfall. No real climbing and any age can do it and it's so pretty. If you've got one hour to spend off the road on this drive, spend it here. The trail's as good as the waterfall. The trees are massive and the light through them is unreal.
The Sol Duc Valley
A few miles past the lake the Sol Duc River runs right along the road for a while. Pull over anywhere and just look. It's fast and cold and runs green through a canyon of enormous trees. It looks like the kind of river that's always been there and always will be.
Up the Sol Duc Road is Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort, good to know about especially in shoulder season when it's cold out and soaking in natural hot springs surrounded by old growth is exactly the right thing to do. Not a stop you need on this particular drive but file it away for next time.
The Hoh Rain Forest
You'll pass the Hoh turnoff on this drive. It's 18 miles south of the 101 on a winding road through forest that gets thicker and thicker. The Hoh gets over 140 inches of rain a year and it's one of the only temperate rain forests in the world. The trees are some of the biggest on earth, covered in club moss so thick they look like green fur.
The Hall of Mosses trail is under a mile and it'll make you feel like you walked into another dimension. It's the most purely Twilight feeling place on the whole Peninsula. If you've got a spare morning on this trip, give it to the Hoh. If you can only do it on the drive, the detour adds about an hour and a half and it's worth every minute.
The prettiest place you've never heard of. Go.
What to Play
Okay this is important to me. The New Moon soundtrack is my favorite of the whole series and honestly one of my favorite road trip albums period, so this drive is basically what it was made for. Here's how I'd split it up.
The Drive Playlist
Twilight Soundtrack
Carter Burwell's score. Bella's Lullaby. Let the music and the forest build together while you're still adjusting to how big the trees are.
New Moon Soundtrack
My fav of all of them btw, I play it on most of our road trips. Meet Me on the Equinox and Possibility and Roslyn and Satellite Heart. Quieter and moodier and it lets the lake and the trees be the whole thing. Such good songs.
Twilight Soundtrack again
Put it back on when the trees get thicker and the road gets narrower and you can feel you're almost there. Let Bella's Lullaby bring you in.
The Light
The light on this drive needs its own section because it does something specific I've never seen anywhere else.
The Peninsula gets like 120 inches of rain a year in some spots. It's overcast a LOT. And what that does to the light coming through the canopy is make it soft and diffused and grey green. No hard shadows. Everything a little bit glowy. The trees glow and the moss glows and the road ahead of you glows.
On the rare clear day actual shafts of sunlight come through the canopy and hit the forest floor in columns. When that happens and you're standing in one of those columns, you get in your body why Stephenie described Edward's skin the way she did. The light up here does things.
Morning is misty and quiet. Afternoon is lush and green. Dusk, if you time getting into Forks for right after sunset, is moody in a way that makes you feel like something beautiful might be watching you from between the trees. We timed it that way by accident and I'd do it on purpose next time.
Getting to Forks
You'll know when you're close. The trees get thicker and the road narrows a little and you start seeing signs for Forks and something shifts in the car. Everybody holding their breath a little if you're with people. A private thing if you're alone.
The town shows up almost all at once. You come out of the trees and suddenly there's streets and shops and the Chamber of Commerce with Bella's truck out front and signs about vampires and you're here.
Get out of the car. Stand in the actual air of Forks, Washington for a second before you start doing anything. Look around. It's been a long trip to get here for most people. The place deserves that and so do you.
The Drive Back Out
When you leave Forks, drive back to Port Angeles on this same road.
It's completely different going the other way. Different light and different mood and you're in a different place emotionally because you've been living in the story for days and leaving it feels a specific way. The forest isn't less pretty. It's prettier, because now you know what's on the other side of it.
Some people say the drive out of Forks is what stays with them longest. Watching the trees open back up into the wider world, the sky coming back, the story behind you now. I think they're right. Both directions matter.
Roll the windows down for the last few miles before Port Angeles. Let the air change as the forest opens up. Let it be a goodbye. You'll be planning the next one before you hit the city limits, I promise you.
"Before you, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor."
Edward Cullen · New Moon