The Hoko River is a river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 in the U.S. state of Washington. It originates in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains

Olympic Mountains

The Olympic Mountains is a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington in the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high - Mount Olympus is the highest at - but the western slopes of the Olympics rise directly out of the Pacific...

, and runs about 25 miles (40.2 km) to the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 through a rugged landscape that has been heavily logged

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

. Its largest tributary is the Little Hoko River, which joins at river mile

River mile

In the United States, a River mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the River kilometer...

 3.5 miles (5.6 km). The lower 1 miles (1.6 km) of the Hoko River is estuarine

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

. The Hoko watershed supports chinook

Chinook salmon

The Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...

, chum

Chum

Chum is a fabulous person Chum may refer to:*Chum salmon, a kind of salmon , native to the northern Pacific and adjacent waterways* Chum is a slang term for a friend....

, coho, and winter steelhead, with over 48 miles (77.2 km) of stream miles that provide suitable spawning habitat.

Because the Hoko River, like the nearby Pysht River

Pysht River

The Pysht River is a stream in the U.S. state of Washington. It originates near Ellis Mountain in the northern Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula and flows generally north, emptying into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Pysht and nearby Hoko River are the two largest streams flowing into...

, is brushy, full of snag

Snag

In forest ecology, a snag refers to a standing, partly or completely dead tree, often missing a top or most of the smaller branches. In freshwater ecology it refers to trees, branches, and other pieces of naturally occurring wood found sunken in rivers and streams; it is also known as coarse woody...

s, and often carries tannin stained water, it is known as a "cedar creek".

The name Hoko is of Makah origin and refers to the large projecting rock at the river mouth.

The Hoko River is the namesake of the Late Eocene Hoko River Formation

Hoko River Formation

The Hoko River Formation is a Late Eocene marine sedimentary geologic formation. The formation is exposed in outcrops along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, USA. It is known for containing numerous fossils of crabs...

, which was formally described in 1976 by Parke D. Snavely, Jr. et al from outcrops along the river.

External links

• USGS gage 12034400 Hoko River, USGS Water-Date Report 2008