THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: WASHINGTON AND ORGEGON PART 1 OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK I have much to thank my father and mother exploring the Pacific Northwest. Dad introduced me to climbing and Boy Scouting, and with together we joined the Seattle Mountaineers climbing course when I was 14 years old, and completed both climbing courses. At 15 in 1962, I was fortunate to have climbed the major volcanoes: Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. My grandfather and fathers love for the outdoors from fishing and hunting to canoeing and hiking fueled that desire to learn more of our Lords Creation. As a teenager I was fortunate to have climbed in the North Cascades, worked as a summer cooks helper in the Mountaineers summer outing north of Stehekin in Park Creek, and at Holden Village for two summers, climbing peaks around me, most of the time solo. I grew in my passion for finding wild areas and documenting them, buying my first Argus C4 camera at age 15, and photographing film from Bonanaza peak and Glacier Peak wilderness area into Mt Buckner and Mt Booker in the north Cascades. Over the decades I finally shared these experiences with my children, now adults who carry on the exploring tradition. These are images of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains I grew up documenting.
Transcript
THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: WASHINGTON AND ORGEGON
PART 1 OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK I have much to thank my father and mother exploring the Pacific Northwest. Dad introduced me to climbing and Boy Scouting, and with together we joined the Seattle Mountaineers climbing course when I was 14 years old, and completed both climbing courses. At 15 in 1962, I was fortunate to have climbed the major volcanoes: Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. My grandfather and fathers love for the outdoors from fishing and hunting to canoeing and hiking fueled that desire to learn more of our Lords Creation. As a teenager I was fortunate to have climbed in the North Cascades, worked as a summer cooks helper in the Mountaineers summer outing north of Stehekin in Park Creek, and at Holden Village for two summers, climbing peaks around me, most of the time solo. I grew in my passion for finding wild areas and documenting them, buying my first Argus C4 camera at age 15, and photographing film from Bonanaza peak and Glacier Peak wilderness area into Mt Buckner and Mt Booker in the north Cascades. Over the decades I finally shared these experiences with my children, now adults who carry on the exploring tradition. These are images of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains I grew up documenting.
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK Olympic National Park in the Pacific Northwest is part of the world’s largest, pristine temperate
rainforests extending from Oregon to SE Alaska, and which supports a large diversity of plants
and animals. The park protects 1442 square miles (3735 square kms), encompassing three
distinctly different ecosystems: rugged glaciated mountains and alpine meadows, wild Pacific
coast, and magnificent old-growth temperate rain forest. These three ecosystems contain a
unique array of habitats and diversity of plants and animals, the result of thousands of years of
geographic isolation, and extreme gradients of elevation, temperature, and precipitation
The Olympic coast is rugged, with rock headlands interspersed with cobble and sandy beaches
adjacent to primary forest 60 miles (97 km) long but just a few miles wide. Coastal forests are
blasted by prevailing westerly winds and sand often leave these sentinels flagged, with
branches on just the protected leeward side. Large trees provide nesting sites for the marbled
murrelet, and nesting bald eagles perched on the battered treetops. Along the pristine beaches
are a jumbled mass of drift logs that originate erosion rivers in primary forests: the Quinault,
Hoh, Queets, Sol Duc and Bogachiel. Here meandering river geomorphological processes
including floods undermine the forest, then deliver fallen trees to the ocean.
The western side of the park is mantled by temperate rainforests, including the Hoh
Rainforest and Quinault Rainforest, which receive annual precipitation of about 150 inches
(380 cm), making this perhaps the wettest area in the continental United States. In contrast
to tropical rainforests and most other temperate rainforest regions, the rainforests of
the Pacific Northwest are dominated by coniferous trees, including Sitka Spruce, Western
Hemlock, Coast Douglas-fir and Western redcedar. Mosses coat the massive limbs of these
trees forming curtains of green, moist tendrils. Bigleaf maples in the rain forest are covered
with epiphytic mosses, ferns, and spike-mosses growing on their trunks and branches.
The lush forests in the Quinault, Queets, Hoh, and Bogachiel valleys are some of the most
spectacular examples of temperate rain forest left. These rain forests once filled southern
Oregon to southeast Alaska, but little remains outside of protected areas.
Other temperate rain forests I have been privileged to explore include coastal southern Chile,
New Zealand and Yunnan China and the Three Parallel Rivers UNESCO world heritage site of
Yunnan, China, the area of greatest temperate plant diversity in the world that includes
western Myanmar. Over 1,450 types of vascular plants grow on the Peninsula, and in
addition hundreds of species of non-vascular mosses, liverworts and hornworts. . From massive
conifers over 20 stories tall, to minute clumps of pink Douglasia prying a life out of rocky peaks,
the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park boast an amazing diversity of plant life.
Olympic National Parks valleys emanating from the eastern side of the park along Hoods Canal
also have notable old-growth forest, but the climate is notably drier. Sitka Spruce is absent,
and historically, mountain goats, the latter recently introduced 4 decades ago.
Olympic National Park and the upper Hoh River rainforest with almost 3000 species of vascular and non vascular plants. Olympic National Park is part of the extensive Temperate rainforest that extends from Oregon to SE Alaska, with high precipitation, and unique ecosystems that vary from the Pacific Ocean, Coast rainforest, and alpine.
Top: Huricane Ridge and Mt Olympus, Mt Olympus from High Divide
Quinault River
Lake Quinault, Olympic elk cow, salmon berry, Rubiaceae
Giant Sitka Spruce Quinault Valley, Olympic National Park
Forest of Western red cedar, sitka spruce and large big leaf maple
Water ouzel, Brown creeper, Red breasted sapsucker
Pacific giant salamander, Oregon newt, western red backed salamander
Harlequin duck, bald eagle nest coast, rufous hummingbird, Below: spruce grouse, red b nuthatch, varied thrush
Top: great horned owl, Oregon junco nest in ferns, Spotted owl, black bear hurricane ridge
Black=tailed deer, Bobcat Quinault river Olympic NP above and below
Racoon, River otter Lutra canadensis commonly seen in the river systems, Re-introduced fisher
Mountain Lion, couger by G Beyergbergen, Olympic elk Hoh river
Bobcat, Quinault river flats
Olympic elk bull with harem, Quinault River
Lake Cushman area waterfall
OLYMPIC COAST
Rialto Beach Headlands
Shi shi beach and distant headlands, several hour hike north of la Push
