Washington

La Peol day use area and former resort area, on Lake Crescent. See nearby photo #1428

Driving along Lake Crescent, I came up to the La Poel day use area. The area was surprisingly large with more elaborate roads than usual for a picnic grounds, but also it was very little used. It wasn't until I was searching for information that I discovered that the day use area was where there had once been a lakeside resort. The following webpage contains interesting pictures from the 1940's of the resort area: www.craigmagnuson.com/lapoel01.htm

Though I had been traveling for a few days through areas with depressed economies, I had not seem much in the way of political ads. This is in Forks, a small town of stores for local and motels/suppliers for people visiting Olympic National Park.

What do you do when its foggy and the water's cold, and there's lots of large stones? Practice balancing rocks.

Rialto Beach, famous for its massive driftwood and rocky beach.

Something I don't recall having ever seen on a forest road -- a long row of trees leaning outward over the road, I guess for the additional space for their crowns.

On the Hall of Mosses Trail. What's memorable here is the picture I didn't take. Just to my right, there was a lithe young man (late teens), lying on his back across a moss-covered portion of a tree, in a pose that looked like he was a model for some pre-Raphaelite style of portraiture. To make matters even more bizarre, there was a much older man (at least my age (late 60's)) seeming to be hovering around him with a camera taking pictures. To add further to the sense of having come across a variation on "Lolita", there were other people nearby just meandering around looking at the trees, acting as if nothing unusual was occurring. Mystified, I decided to continue walking – just a few feet past the scene, the older man came walking up the trail mumbling about his crazy grandson. This turned out to be just the first in two odd social occurrences of the day – the second will be in forthcoming pictures.

Guard with moss....he wasn't going to move, and I didn't want to disturb him, so we stood like that for a minute or so. I think that's a clump of moss in his mouth.

Stump.... if my memory is correct, that was over 6' in diameter.

Along the Spruce Nature Trail at Hoh Rain Forest.

Along the Spruce Nature Trail at Hoh Rain Forest.

When I got to the visitor center at Hoh Rain Forest area of Olympic National Park, I almost turned around and left -- the parking lot was full and there were lots of people milling around. Luckily, though, I looked at the trail map and saw that there was a very short introductory trail with two 1-mile trails branching off of it. Figuring that most of the visitors would just be doing the short loop trail, I decided to risk the crowds. Luckily I was correct, the somewhat longer trails had much less visitors. This is from the Spruce Nature Trail.

The Hoh River, along the road into the Hoh Rain Forest trails area.

In the small resort area of Lake Quinault, not far from the Quinaul Rain Forest trail, is what is proclaimed to be the world's largest spruce. The tree is just short of 59' in diameter, 191' tall, and estimated to be about 1000 years old. There's better pictures of its size here: www.monumentaltrees.com/en/usa/washington/graysharborcounty/2549_lakequinaultresort/7019

From the Quinault Rain Forest trail in Olympic National Forest, see the discussion with nearby photo #1385

From the Quinault Rain Forest trail in Olympic National Forest, see the discussion with nearby photo #1385