“the leaping greenly spirits of trees . . .”
— e e cummings
Our second Olympic National Park destination was the Hoh Rain Forest. This temperate rain forest gets 12 to 14 feet of rain each year, but we were lucky to be visiting on a sunny day. We began seeing moss-draped trees on the road leading into the heart of the rain forest. Instead of fifty shades of gray, we were seeing fifty shades of green.
Moss-Hung Trees
by Gertrude Gilmore, 1936
Moss-hung trees
Like the mantilla of a beautiful lady’s ghost
Bearing elusive fragrance of a faint perfume
Soft, caressing;
Shaped
Like the wings of huge, inert gray moths, —
Weird and uncertain branches veining them
Gossamer, intangible;
And reshaped
Like fairy cobwebs interlacing mesh upon mesh
With lights of foolish insects caught within them
Restive, darting
With shadows —
Like half reluctant thoughts lately modified
In a world of fantastical shapes and causes,
Mystical, fleeting.
The Green Month of March
March 18, 2011
TSNW Annual Snowshoe Event
March 6, 2011
Yesterday was the Team Survivor NW (TSNW) annual snowshoe event at Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains, about 1-1/2 hours from Seattle. It was so much fun to play in the snow, which was deep this year. The beautifully groomed trail passed through snow-laden trees. The snow kept falling in clumps as the day warmed up. Here are some photos from the day:
Seattle Day Trip: Hoh Rain Forest
November 13, 2010
On my day-off work this week, my husband and I took a road trip to the Olympic Peninsula to visit the Hoh Rain Forest, a temperate rain forest in our state that averages over 12 feet of rain per year! We caught the Edmonds-Kingston ferry across Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula. It hadn’t started raining yet.
As we drove Hwy 101 north and west, we left any sun breaks and saw low-lying clouds caught in the trees on the mountain slopes. By the time we reached Lake Crescent, it was raining. From then on, our windshield wipers got a real workout.
It was still raining when we arrived at the Hoh Rainforest. We hiked the Hall of Mosses trail, a 3/4 mile easy loop, where we were surrounded by immense trees, ferns, mosses and lichens.
Some of the prettiest scenery on our drive was the section of Hwy 101 along Lake Crescent. This was a trip where the journey was as satisfying as the destination.