STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE FOREST PRIMEVAL

Home again but it will take me awhile to collect local material and there is still lots from the trip. There are only a few places in the world where you can find a cool rain forest. The western side of the Olympic mountains is one of them. Several rivers begin in the high glaciers and  flow to the Pacific, with heavy rain going in the other direction. This is a trail called the Hall of Mosses in the upper Hoh River valley. It varies a lot by season but the area receives up to 12 feet / 3 2/3 meters of rain a year.               

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - WHY WE COME HERE

Greetings from beautiful Dallas - Fort Worth International Airport, where American Airlines customers spend part of their lives. This is another shot of Ruby Beach on the Pacific coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. I think it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, with different approaches to photography in every kind of weather and every hour of the day. (It would be something special with a tripod on a clear, moonlit night.)

Home in a few hours but I'll be running trip pictures for a while.               

The Canopy

It you have been to a rain forest, or thought about it, you have heard of the canopy. It's the multi-tiered vertical ecosystem that can grow to great heights. Plants, animals, insects and birds compete for light and food. Many trees grow quite slowly when they are in the shade and then, when old, taller ones die, race upward to grab their own parcel of sky. The forest floor can be dark and gloomy. 

Mrs. C was out with our guide on a suspension bridge perhaps 100 feet above the valley floor. It held us well enough but a lot of the suspension cables looked rusty. I wonder what the insurance standards are in Costa Rica. The bottom picture is a view across the canopy from the bridge.              

In The Rain Forest

Long day trip yesterday with the superb 3 Monkies tour company, the best in Guanacaste Province. We have used them on all of our trips to Tamarindo. This time the itinerary was the rain forest on the Pacific side of the Tenorio volcano (lots of those here) and the Llanas de Cortez waterfall.

We drove from the provincial capital of Liberia down the Panamerican Highway, up a secondary road to the town of Rio Naranjo (Orange River), then up five miles - at least - of really bad road to the Heliconias Lodge in the rain forest. It's dry season here but the woodland is still lush. Our guide took us on a strenuous walk up and down the mountainside, through the canopy and over four suspension foot bridges.

Along the trail our guide spotted this brilliant millipede. These are after-and-before pictures. It was wandering down the trail, happy as can be, but quite vulnerable to predatory birds. Our guide explained that some birds can suck them down like a piece of spaghetti. The sound of our feet made it curl up into a pinwheel, too wide for a bird's throat.

Mrs. C wonders if millipedes were the inspiration for the Slinky.                              

Today's Destination

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We spent last night at a hotel at the Seattle airport. Today we're headed for Kalaloch Lodge, located on the Pacific Coast of Olympic National Park.  This is the extreme northwest corner of the main body of the U.S. (Alaska and Hawaii are off on their own.)

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The photos are from our last visit to the area four years ago. We love it. It's wild, remote and isolated. The area is a cool weather rain forest. You can take walks along the rough beach or wander up trails along the rivers descending from the mountains. Might see a moose. It's not going to be as bright as the top picture when we arrive. In fact, it may be pouring rain. That's one of the reasons people go there. 

No room phone, TV, cellular service or Internet. All they got is a couple of phone booths in the parking lot. We have to drive 40 minutes to the little logging town of Forks, Washington, to get online. Forks, by the way, is the place where the Twilight series of vampire stories is set.  Under the circumstances , I might not get out any posts until we get to Seattle of Wednesday. Same for comments.