Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Into the Woods

The scenery along the coasts of Oregon and Washington State is wonderful, marred only by their policy of forest clear-cutting. This is a picture of the "mohawk cut" on the hills beside Nehalem Beach State Park. Bare hills are seen all along the highways. They do reforestation as well, and the signs along the road indicate when the area was forested. But reforestation only replants the trees they intend to cut later, and so the trees along the roads tend to be all the same.
So its a good thing they set aside areas like the Olympic National Park, where old growth forests are allowed to stand. Unlike the clear cut areas, these woods have an amazing diversity. We took a two day drive around the perimeter of the park, venturing into park roads and short trails, "just scouting" as my hubby says, "for a future visit". The scouting trip was great. You can see me looking up at a very large Sitka Spruce.
We walked trails of huge trees, into rain forests full of moss and ferns, and drove up along a ridge with view of the Olympic Mountains. It was amazing the difference all within 2 hours of driving from one area to the next. The lower western side of the mountains was damp rainforest. In driving to the mountains, we started out in the ever-present rain of the coast, then moved up into the fog and mist of clouds where wildlife appeared on the edge of the road, mere inches from the abyss behind them. A mile or two later we broke through into the sunlight above the clouds.
There was snow several feet high at the top of the ridge, and snowplows still stood waiting. We enjoyed the views of the valleys and peaks of the mountain range at several stops along the road. We might have taken the time to go snowshoeing near the top, but many months ago I had taken the stand that we were going "south" and therefore had no need to bring such accessories with us. So instead, we completed our circuit of the park by driving the western side - Puget Sound area. It was also in the rainshadow of the mountains, which means we were rain-free for a couple of hours, anyway.

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