Back in the Rain Forest

Both Frank and I used to live in British Columbia and we feel nostalgic about the drippy, cool west coast rain forests.  The awe that comes from standing among the ferns and mosses under the big trees is completely different from what one feels in the wide openness of the desert.  Last week we took a day trip to the Olympic Wilderness area to experience the forest again.

The day was a typical rain forest day — mostly cloudy and with a sprinkle of rain now and again.  In this part of the world they measure the annual rainfall in feet rather than inches, and it comes out to twelve feet per year.  What a contrast to the parts of the southwest we visited where three inches or less of rain each year is not uncommon!

We drove around Quinault Lake and stopped at Willaby Creek to take pictures of the falls.  Frank took lots of photos of the falls and I took lots of photos of Frank taking photos.    We saw the biggest spruce tree in the world (Frank’s hometown of Kitimat has the biggest spruce tree in Canada, but apparently the Washington tree is larger), and the biggest cedar tree, too.  The biggest Douglas fir is also in that area, but we didn’t happen upon it (we stayed pretty close to the road).  Here are a few of the photos I took:

Willaby Creek Falls

Frank clambering up for a better view of the falls

I liked the quiet peace of this view

Here's Frank standing inside the biggest cedar, which is mostly hollow at the bottom but still very green at the top