We traveled up the Olympic Peninsula of Washington today to experience the Hoh Rainforest.  We’ve been in a tropical rainforest, but had no idea how a rainforest could be way up here. 

 It’s one of the few temperate rain forests in the US and also one of the largest.  It gets its name from the Hoh Indian tribe which resides on a reservation in the Hoh Valley.  The livelihood of the Hoh Indians is primarily fishing although a few of the residents make traditional decorative baskets, carved canoes for ocean going or river use and other decorative carvings.

What we learned was that some very special circumstances created a beautiful conifer rainforest.  A cool mountain mass (the Olympics), a nearby ocean (the Pacific), an ocean facing valley (the Hoh Valley), a protective barrier mountain range (the Cascades), and prevailing onshore winds combined to create this special place.

The atmosphere of the rain forest is so fertile that some plants thrive on air.  Dining on moisture and nutrients from rain and windborne particles, clubmoss and licorice fern fasten to trunks and branches but do not harm their hosts.

There are even licorice fern growing out of clubmoss.

These trees have no taproots, the roots that grow deep down into the ground.  Without the anchor of taproots, mature trees are blown over during winter storms and slowly decay.  Not to worry though, because in this special ecosystem, they soon become covered by mosses and liverworts.

They later become nurse logs for new tree seedlings.  In time those little trees grow roots down into the ground and then can grow more vigorously.  Eventually, surviving trees grow in a line along the old trees, forming a colonnade.

Centuries later, when nurse logs decay, tunnels through the buttressed bases mark where the old logs lay.

Some have grown quite large.  This Spruce is 270 feet high and has been standing for over 500 years.

I thought this one looked like it had dreadlocks.