Day 12 my good husband indulged my bucket list item. We drove all the way to Quinault Rainforest Trail to walk a 1/2 mile trail through old growth forest. I was in heaven. It is located at the edge of Olympic National Park.
First, the drive there. We started our day at 3,231.8 miles driven. The drive would be about four hours. We would stop once for gasoline once. No indoor potty here. It was a porta potty experience.
This is a crossing built over the road for wildlife to get safely from one side to the other. Nice!
This looked like the mountain was sticking out its tongue at us!
As we neared Quinault, These trees amazed me. I felt like I was in the Harry Potter movie where they have the competition between the schools. The final one is in a maze. This looked like that maze to me.
This is a map of the Olympic Peninsula. There is a road going around Olympic National Park. I have underlined in blue Lake Quinault. The the left of that underline is a blue dot where the Quinault Rainforest Nature Trail is located. There are other trails but this one was only 1/2 mile long and fairly easily traversed. You need to be sure of tree roots so you don't trip.
Coastal temperate rainforests are known for their old-growth trees. There are Douglas-firs in Olympic National Park that are between 250-550 years old.
Giants like this Douglas-fir are estimated to be 400 years old.
Fallen trees are called 'nurse logs'. They do two important things. They can store hundreds of liters of water to provide water for tree roots and little amphibians during the dry times. They also are growing space for herbs, shrubs and tree seedlings.
They have to cut the trees that fall on the trail. The pieces cut away are left in piles and they perform the same two functions at fallen trees listed above.
We both enjoyed this walk and learned some new things in the process.
We now headed to our hotel in Aberdeen, Washington. We would walk down the street a little to Denny's for our evening meal.
Gasoline today was $5.39.9 in Olympia, Washington.
