Saturday, March 06, 2010

Staircase Hike in Olympic National Park

Hello,
Today we finally had a nice sunny (almost warm) day so I went hiking with some friends.

Hiking along the "Staircase" trail, I followed the Skokomish river, crossing it several times as the river twisted and turned its way up through the mountains and through the old-growth forest within.

Many waterfalls fed into the river and I had a nice view of Mount Lincoln.

Here are some pics and one video:

Mount Washington.  I could only see the summit as I looked way up from the river, through the tree tops, to  the mountain.  The river runs in and out around the bottom of such mountains.


Here is the Skokomish River, or at least one small portion of the river. 
Many other parts of the river were running fast and had waterfalls.


This is a fast running tributary that we crossed on a foot log
 (single log used as a bridge) spanning this gorge high above the water.


One of my favorite waterfalls of the hike.

One BIG cedar tree! There were also many others
in this ancient, old growth forest  Oh.. and just to
provide prospective, that's me paying my respects to tree.

Okay, I had to have my picture taken again,
this time in front of a waterfall :-).

This is the nice picture of that waterfall.

Waterfalls Video  - I spliced together videos I shot of all of the waterfalls
in the pictures above. It's a pretty short video, but you can hear the
waterfalls and experience the fast moving, powerful water.


I am sure to discover a Japanese poem that complements this hiking experience and, when I do, I will blog it to http:\\haigaobsession.blogspot.com.