A perfect day to go for a walk in old growth and visit a water fall.
A tiny bay on Lake Crescent, a very deep cold lake surrounded on all sides by mountains.
We parked at Storm King Ranger Station on Lake Crescent in the Olympic National Park, and took the path to a tunnel which goes under Highway 101. It was definitely like going back in time to when all the woods around the Peninsula looked like this.
While we were getting our coats and boots on for our walk, we could hear a small group of crazy people wearing bathing suits, trying to get their nerve up to jump into the lake. By the time we walked around the side of the lake and were ready to cross under the road, they were still fidgeting around on the dock, hugging themselves, but not jumping into the water.
Big Leaf Maple at least four feet in diameter at on the trunk of the tree.
This Big Leaf Maple tree is covered in a thick layer of moss. It’s kind of hard to believe it can support any leaves but it does, out on the ends of its branches, large dinner plate sized leaves. The books we’ve read say some of these trees carry as much weight in moss as the tree themselves weigh. The moss is almost an irredescent green, especially if the sunlight illuminates it. We had clouds this day, a cool 37F when we started on the trail.
Large sword ferns are several feet long and can cover a pretty wide circumference.
Sword ferns are only one of the types of ferns in these temperate rain forest woods. This type is abundant and evergreen.
Wide graveled trail was not the least bit muddy.
Smaller trees line the trail, surrounding the large trees which are scattered around in the woods. Even on days like this, cloudy but not actively raining, there is a misty atmosphere in the damp woods. We saw a scattering of birds on our trip, Varied Thrush, Pacific Wren (bleah, I liked the old Winter Wren name better), chickadees, Nuthatches tooting their little horn sound, Ravens calling from high overhead in the canopy.
A tree hugger. Definitely.
Hugging a giant tree 12 feet in diameter and hundreds of years old is kind of magical.
Long way up!
Looking up a couple hundred feet tall, this big old fellow is missing a lot of height and branches.
Looking upstream.
This is the creek fed, in part, by the Marymere falls. See that large tree bridging the creek up river from where we’re standing? Dan told me we got to walk across that log. I told him I’d wait for him to come back 🙂
Looking downstream from the same spot on the bank.
The water is fast, and cold, and totally clear. You can see the rocks lining the creek bed, through the white water.
This looked like a wonderful spot to sit on the bank on a hot summer day and put your feet into the cold water.
Another view of the creek where the trail got closer to the creek, before turning and heading further into the woods.
Really lush vegetation even in the dead of winter.
Our first view of the falls, this is a lower and much smaller height waterfall.
Marymere Falls is not a very large waterfall but it makes up for lack of size by how beautiful it is and also the surrounding canyon walls.
Standing on a platform next to the falls, it is surprisingly loud in the narrow canyon.
The lower part of the falls threw up an amazing amount of moisture into the air.
The icy cold water created a constant mist in the air, totally refreshing on our faces.
Cold clear water!
Looking down on the tree bridge crossing the creek. It’s only about ten feet above the surface of the water, but it seemed much higher when looking down over the split log railing.
A tree fell across the creek and some enterprising soul said, “Oh! Let’s saw it in half and make bridge out of it.” One has to wonder if that was before or after his friend fell off the round log.
Dan waiting patiently at the end of the bridge for me to stop messing around, taking pictures and feeling the flexibility of the bridge by bouncing up and down on it.
Totally wonderful place to go walking.
After the falls, we drove to La Push, a small village on the Pacific Ocean coast, had a picnic lunch while sitting in the car, parked on a jetty and watching the waves go crashing into rocks. We were looking for ocean birds but that day they were off doing something else on some other beach.
Slip one, knit two, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 5, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over knit two together, knit to end. Yawn!!
In other news, a little while ago I transformed my large fluffy skein of yarn into a ball of yarn, and started my lace knitting project. I did the math, this was a little over a mile of yarn. Unfortunately for me, I’m on the extremely boring ‘knit the bottom border’ which is mind numbing in the repetitive nature of it all. Once I force myself to get done with this (almost half way done), then it becomes much more entertaining and easier to make some progress.