THE HOH RAINFOREST.

Three trails take you into the depths of the Hoh Rainforest. The river trail is 17.5 miles long, the spruce trail is 1.2 miles long and the moss trail is .75 miles. We've seen a good bit of rainforest these days and decided on the shorter moss trail. Sixty feet into the trail and wham, this big cedar jumps out at you. I tried to take a panorama shot of it, with minimal success. It is just too big.

And again, another panorama of a huge spruce tree...
with the top showing above some other trees. I'm standing among giants.

In a small cleared area, I was able to stand far enough back to get a smaller tree from top to bottom, except the bottom is hidden behind a rotting spar, but, you get the idea. Wow!

And then when one giant falls across the path and another giant falls across it? How many years before they become decayed and dangerous? Twenty-five, thirty years?

This trail is named moss and there is plenty of it. As we got deeper into the woods, we saw heavy moss like this.

And this.

The mosses are licorice moss and another that survives on the nutrients in the air. It can be pretty. But, some heavily covered trees look dead and ugly to me.
The understory is beautiful and the woods an exciting walk through.

A sign asked us to pace off this fallen tree. You are looking at half of it.

I was stunned when I learned how tall they grow.

You look at this living and dying forest, the mixture of the little things eating up the big things. This rain forest averages 155 inches of rain per year.

If you hold still log enough, you'll have a new hairdo.

The fungi are relentless, and do their job and provide a bit of beauty too.

We left the moss trail and walked part of the spruce trail. Doubtless we missed some different sites, but it was similar in many ways to what we had just seen. We packed up and went home.  Having missed lunch, we enjoyed an early dinner instead. If you have the opportunity, you should visit Hoh Rainforest.

DUNGENESSE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.

Two paths lead from the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge parking lot, high on a bluff, to the five-mile long spit where a lighthouse beckons. It is a working lighthouse, and a great beach hike. We took the primitive path through the woods which is rainforest in nature.


It isn't an exaggeration to say the woods are being eaten up by rot, mosses and fungi of one sort or another.


And, we see beauty in the process.


The forest is heavy, dark with sunlight streaking through in places. You feel like you are alone in the bower of bushes and trees brushing and closing in all sides.


Then, from an overlook, you get a magnified view of  the lighthouse at the end of the spit with a day full of sun, blue water and sky.


Down onto the beach, there isn't much to see but driftwood for miles. Huge tree roots and smooth washed branches, along with a few gulls and the never-ending tidal laps.


Like kids, we played while enjoying our luck to be outside walking a sand spit rather than sitting in front of a television or worrying about the bad news it injects into your life daily.


Many of the trees have roots and we pondered where did they come from? Is this yellow cedar?


Jim drew a heart in the sand...

"It's been a long time since I did something like that," he said.


Our goal was this upright piece of driftwood. Who would take the time to stand up a tall heavy dead tree like that, we asked ourselves?


The upright drift wood, didn't drift here. The tree was still attached to the ground like the surrounding stumps, a sentinel of what the area may have looked like with a forest closer to the water at one time in the distant past.


A popular pastime for some people is to stack stones into cairns, or build shelters from the driftwood.


I climbed up the grassy embankment and the lighthouse is still just a small bubble on the horizon.


And a look back from whence we came, the tall bluff. We walked about a mile on the beach.


Then returned to civilization for lunch at the golf course in beautiful Dungeness, figuring since there is a dungeness festival coming up we could find some good crab. I had the lightest, tastiest crab cakes at Stymies, but their chowder left a lot to be desired. It is always an adventure.  From there to the Organic Farm Store for produce and home to read and relax.


Check out this sunset. It was predicted to rain, but didn't.