Quinault Rain forest

Rainforests are so intriguing.  All the monkeys flying through the thick canopy.  The millions of exotic insects living in the dark underbrush.  So obviously, I wanted to visit a rainforest in Washington.  Right,  temperate rainforests are not tropical rainforests.

The west side of the Olympic mountains is home to two rain forests that get over twelve feet of rain a year - the Hoh rainforest to the north and the Quinault rain forest to the south.  We took a Sunday hike around part of the Quinault rainforest.

We started at the National Forest Ranger station on the east shore of Lake Quinault.  From there, we crossed the road and began the Quinault Loop Trail, a moderate three mile trail.  The forest looked much like any other Northwest forest except maybe a little more lush with moss.

It seemed we were hiking through a previously forested area, which is typical on National Forest land, since there wasn't a lot of diversity in trees.

Eventually, the trail got to denser forests.  Again, the transcendental nature of the forests here astonishes me.  You just don't find such untouched land back east.  Here is our depiction of a transcendental painting:

When we met back up with the road, we were a little less than a mile from the Ranger Station.  Here was a well-maintained nature trail with signs pointing out the features of the rainforest.  The most interesting aspect are the nursing trees - trees that fall down then have other trees grow on top of them.  As the original tree rots, the other trees grow their roots around the rotting trunk.  There was one example there where the trees growing on top of the nursing tree were already at least twenty years old.  It is a magnificent example of nature's recycling.

The trail crossed the road back to the shores of Lake Quinault.  We walked along the lakeshore partly through a National Park campground and partly through Quinault Indian land.  The lake was choppy water but pleasant.  Across the lake, some of the smaller peaks in the Olympic range rose above the water.  Just before we reached the ranger station, we arrived at the Lake Quinault Lodge, a classic early twentieth century lodge, where we had a nice lunch.  The Monte Cristo was delicious after a couple hours of hiking.  FDR even ate there in 1937!

The absolute best part of the day was seeing the world's largest Sitka Spruce.  This area of Washington is actually home to six conifers that are the largest known specimens of their species.  The Sitka is 191 feet tall and has a circumference of 58'11".  It is about 1,000 year old!  It was by far the largest tree I ever saw and a great end to a great day.