Olympic National Park (The Hoh Rain Forest)

We went to 5 different campgrounds before landing one in the Olympic N.P. This is a very popular park with the Seattle crowd, and we even saw people stealing each other's campsites. Don't worry, the machete was ready. We were grateful to finally find this secluded spot.

One of the coolest things we saw in Olympic was the Colonnade.

Winter storms blow down these giant Spruce and Western Hemlocks. Over time, the fallen start to grow moss and liverwort over their trunks. Seeds from the surviving trees get trapped in the moss and start sprouting in rows on the fallen trunks. If you look carefully, you get a good picture of this process in the first shot below. In the second photo, hundreds of years later, you get a Colonnade. Notice how the roots grow over the fallen trunk called the nursery log. Eventually, the nursery log decomposes completely and a tunnel is all that's left under the roots.





One of many giants.