Gillespie Clan Treehouse

Photos from The Olympic Peninsula

Part of my week off last week was a two day trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Jessie, Boris and I went on two different hikes in the Quinault Valley Rainforest. We just got a Toyota Matrix a few months ago, and we decided to try out car camping. Two things really stood out to me and I did my best to make both of these things apparent in the photos.

First of all, it is gorgeous over there. The vegetation is dense and incredibly green and it’s noticeably different than forested areas on this side of the sound. Under the high forest canopy there is a beautiful variety of plants and trees that makes the undergrowth feel like a well designed landscape. From a gardener’s perspective, nothing really stands out as a weed when you’re looking around. You don’t see areas where non-native invasive plants are threatening to take over like the ivy and blackberry bushes in this area do.

The second thing that really stood out was the incredible role that trees blown down over the winter plays in the environment. There were tons of downed trees from this last winter, some of them pulled up from the roots, and some of them look like they exploded near the base of the tree. At first a part of me was appalled by the devastation, and then I started seeing the trees that have been down for several years, and there is a whole new generation of forest that is growing up out of the mighty fallen ones. After that you begin to realize that the reason there is so much texture to the terrain is that there are trees that have been down for decades that are now so overgrown with new vegetation they look like part of the hills. I have a couple of photos where you can see trees growing out of old tree stumps and there is one phenomenal tree that grew out of a log that has rotted away for the most part, and now it looks like it just pushed itself six feet out of the ground for no good reason!

I’d highly recommend taking a day trip over there. They’ve got a half-mile loop trail that is very easy going for those of you with youngun’s or who just really aren’t of the hiking persuasion called the Quinault Rainforest Loop Trail. It’s got several nice plaques with info on the ecosystem and history of the area. Unlike the rest of the Olympic National Park, the Quinault Rainforest Valley is part of the National Forest system, so pets are allowed on the trails with you.