 |
This matter-of-fact sign gives little clue to what lies ahead
for the adventurer. |
The Hoh has its humble beginning in the blue ice fields of
Olympus
Mountain (photo by Sam
Beebe/Ecotrust). |
Along its 56-mile trek to the Pacific hundreds of small feeder
streams join, which in turn are fed by 12 feet of rain annually.
|
Unlike the gray beards of the Southeast (Spanish moss,
Edisto Island,
SC)… |
…Northwestern gents
sport green beards (club moss). |
Cotton candy anyone? |
Coat hangers. |
The wakening sun struggles to penetrate this American jungle.
Everywhere you look, all you can see is life, and every
imaginable hue of green! |
In the rain forest nothing is wasted; what rays manage to escape
the mosses are intercepted by the ferns. |
In this land of seeming chaos, every plant and structure vies
for expression.
|
Light is a precious commodity in this land of shadows.
|
All trees bow to greet the morning sun.
|
A new monarch breaks forth from the forest canopy almost 300
feet above. |
Another monarch, after a thousand-year reign, crashes to the
floor below
|
. In the scrimmage of
survival, only the strongest remain.
|
And now I lay me down to sleep. |
From death comes new life; a nurse log provides dry footing for
new trees and plants to take their place in this land of
opportunity. |
“The groves were God’s
first temples (William Cullen Bryant, 1824).”
|
The milky blue waters of
the Hoh rush to greet… |
…the salty gray waters of the Pacific, just north of
Ruby Beach. |
|
