A visit to coastal rain forest

[peakbagger]

I did a big trip out west recently to Washington State. The first part was day backpack on the Pacific Crest Trail, lots of big Douglas firs but nothing like a visit to the Hoh river valley on the west side of the Olympic National Park. It's a rain forest with 130 inches of rain a year. Driving to it the woods are mostly managed forests but get in the park and its the original trees. Mostly Dougls fir, Sitka Spruce and occasional red cedars. Plenty of 6 to 12 footers with some larger. Lots of the them on the ground several feet in diameter that act as nurse trees for new trees. In some cases the new trees growing on top of the logs are a couple of feet in diameter. They must not have carpenter ants out there are in many cases the wood in intact. Below is a sample of typical tree at our campsite. There were several of this size spread out enough for sunlight to get in and a secondary maple forest was growing below. The maples were pretty beat up with few long straight sections and covered with moss. May not be Sequoias or Redwoods but still big darn trees. That is my full sized backpack I lugged across the PCT and into this campsite.

 

[begreen]

It's great that you got some time out there. Doug firs get big. There are still some huge cedars but you often need to go deep into the mountain valleys to see them. You were close to a big coastal redwood in Seabeck, WA. It's about 18' in diameter. I came across some big 16' diameter cedars a couple of weeks ago around Wynoochee Falls.

What part of the PCT were you on?

 

[peakbagger]

Snoqualamie to Stevens Pass. I was trying to get reservations for the Wonderland Trail around Ranier but didnt win the lottery tomake reservations. This section of the PCT was bit shorter but easier to get to. I did the section near Adams up to Whites pass about 20 years ago, it was easier than the section we did this time.