8/1 - Olympic National Park - Hoh Rain Forest and Ruby Beach

Another long drive today (190 miles) but it was on a much better road and was a lot easier than yesterday. The road went in and out of the park so it was also being used by log trucks. Logging is very big business on the peninsula.

The log trucks haul a lot of weight but the ones that were in front of us kept up with the speed limit very well.  On their return trip to the logging area they carry their empty 2nd trailer on top of the 1st trailer. 

The first spectacular sight we passed was Crescent Lake. It's a big lake which was even bigger prior to a massive landslide in the distant past which cut off the northern section. Ever since then the salmon in Crescent Lake have been landlocked.

Crescent Lake this morning.....

And again this afternoon with clouds coming in.

Mount Storm King is at the end of the lake in the lower picture.  According to Indian legend, the mountain became angry because the Klallam and Quileute people were killing each other in battle. The mountain hurled part of his crest down into the valley, killing the combatants and damming the stream to form the present lake. The legend closely corresponds with geological evidence of the landslide which split the lake.

Evidence of landslides on the mountains over the lake. These don't seem to have done any damage down below but they have to be a concern for the people living on the edge of the water.

Two striking Madrona trees hanging over the road next to the lake. Their red bark makes them really stand out. These are the biggest we've ever seen.

Our first stop was the Hoh Rain Forest section of the park. It is one of the finest remaining examples of temperate rain forests in the U.S.  At one time the rain forest covered the entire Pacific Coast from southeastern Alaska to central California. The Hoh gets between 12 and 14 feet of rain per year, mainly in the winter and the climate is ideal for growing lush vegetation.

On the Hall of Mosses Trail.

The size of the trees is mind-boggling. They are so tall it's impossible to get a photo of a whole tree.  Information plaques tell how to identify the trees by their needles or leaves but the trees are so big you can't see the needles and only occasionally the leaves. (The conifers are much bigger than the deciduous trees.)  

Jim walking under two huge blow-downs, called a widow-maker at home.

Without a person for perspective it would be hard to realize how big this tree is.

These trees started out life growing on a nurse log. As a fallen tree decays it provides a nursery for the seedlings of hemlock and spruce which can't survive on the tangled forest floor. Roots from the few seedlings that survive eventually reach the ground and, as the nurse log decays away, it looks like the trees are standing on stilts, not to mention the tangle of roots they develop.

Growing conditions are so good in the rain forest that nearly every trunk and limb is festooned with mosses and ferns. There are enough nutrients in the air and water that plants that aren't usually epiphytes can live without soil.

A 190-foot long downed Sitka spruce log, about 5 feet in diameter. Sitka spruces average 220 feet here but can grow as high as 300 feet, rivaling redwoods and sequoias.

We took the shortest hike (the 3/4 mile Hall of Mosses Trail) and would have liked to also do a longer one but had to forego it so we'd have time to get to Ruby Beach.  The 18 miles on Upper Hoh Road turned out to be very slow going in both directions with a stretch of road construction which completely stopped traffic along with a car whose driver would neither do the speed limit nor get out of the way.  As luck would have it, we got behind the same car both going up and coming back. He had a string of 20 cars behind him going both directions.

Our second (and last) stop was Ruby Beach to see the sea stacks. Most of the peninsula's coast is protected by either being part of the Olympic Wilderness or the reservations of several coastal Indian tribes so there's no development.

The most photographed sea stacks on Ruby Beach. The big one on the left was once part of the headland on the right.

Called the bleached bones of the forest, there are masses of gigantic tree trunks which are washed down the rivers in floods. Between glacial meltwater and the torrential rains of winter, flooding of sufficient strength to knock trees down and carry them to the beach is not uncommon.

A North Carolinian in a Minnesota hoodie on a Washington State beach.......