Olympic Rainforest
The trees are what it’s all about in the Olympic Rainforest in Washington. Some are 300 feet tall and 23 feet around. I guess it’s also about the rain that makes them grow. The annual rainfall is 12-14 feet a year if you can imagine that!
My kids were in love with these massive trees. They just wanted to stay with them. It was almost as if they had become friends with these anicent, magnificent conifers. My two youngest were like little trolls, poking in and out of hollowed out sitka spruce and western hemlocks. They’d make a tree fort in one that had broken off, doling out rooms to each other and discussing battle strategy.
They played hide and seek and made an awful lot of noise. We wanted to get through the forest to get to the beach, but they just wanted to stay with the trees. The next day they wanted to return. “I want to go back to the trees,” my nine-year old son said. Everyone wished there was more time for the trees.
I got the feeling that everything was alive around me. Everything was growing, everything had a life and purpose. The ferns, the mosses, the shrubs, and of course, the trees, were breathing around us. We may have even gotten a great family Christmas photo out of it.
It’s all about the trees.
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