Thursday, July 12, 2012

Drive home/ NP tour - stop 1

Olympic NP, WA


Our first stop on out national park hop was Olympic NP, WA for 3 days, and oh how we wish we had planned more time there! It has so much there and every place is incredible for its own things.
Even just in the mountains we saw the glaciers up on Mt. Olympus, the prairies on the sides of the mountains, the fresh (freezing) rivers cutting through the rivers and old growth forests with trees over 200 ft tall. And if this isn't paradise then just continue on!





The park also protects much of Washington's coastline. So we hiked though more old growth forests until we magically stumbled out onto their pristine beaches covered in those huge trees that fell and were pushed out to sea by the rivers and now collect on the beaches in huge piles of drift wood.

 Swimming in the runoff from the snow melt. Refreshing--ah.
Ok, still asking for more?

South-east of the Olympics are the Hoh and Quinalut rain forests. This is like real life Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Giant trees and giant ferns and moss taller than me hanging down from the tree branches.


Some of the giant trees were like this Sitka Spruce that are over 230 ft tall and grow so tall because the area gets more than 150 in of rain fall a year. The other giant trees are the Western Hemlock, and the Douglas Fir.




End the last day with this sunset on the beach just as the fog is rolling in.

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