Hoh Rain Forest

On Thursday morning we drove north toward the Columbia National Forest. We stopped at the information/ranger station and got a map and lots of good information. They had a wonderful canoe carved from a single log.

They also had a whale skull.

The ranger told us that there was an active eagle's nest at beach access #4 and that they were sometimes seen hanging out at the point. This photo was taken from the top viewing area. Needless to say we didn't walk down nor did we see any eagles but it was still a beautiful place.

From there we drove north again toward Hoh Rain Forest. We crossed lots of rivers like this one along the way.

We learned that one of the things that rain forests have that regular forests don't have as much of is lots of plants growing on plants. This was demonstrated by these downed trees. You can clearly see all the little trees growing on these trees.

The trees also had lots of moss growing everywhere.

The floor of rain forests is covered with small plants and ferns.

I guess we shouldn't have been surprised as we started down a trail that it started to rain. It is a rain forest after all. We didn't get to go far as we had planned because of the rain--my grandchildren always said I couldn't get in the rain because I was so sweet that I would melt. Little do they know!

As we were leaving the park we caught sight of this elk in the river. They estimate that about a tenth of the park's elk live in this rain forest.

We leave Sunday for Kent, WA where we have to have a seal replaced on the slide.

Catch you next week.