Had a beautiful, sunny, clear day - perfect for a return trip to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, WA. There seemed to be a lot more traffic and then it hit me that most people wait for the really nice days before they take a drive.
This young deer decided to graze in front of the Visitors Center where it was captured in several thousand pictures.
The ranger gave a very interesting talk about life in the upper elevations of the park. She told us about the marmot which can hibernate up to eight months a year! Its body temperature gets down to just above freezing and its heart rate gets down to 4 beats per minute. That is extreme napping - I am a little jealous.
She also explained why a lot of trees have no bark on one side. The wind blows ice crystals that abrade the bark in winter just like a sandblaster. She also explained something we had noticed and guessed about (correctly, as it turned out). The trees at 5,000 feet elevation were only one third the height of the trees at 500 feet elevation. In the 1930s a ranger moved a small tree from the top to the lower elevation and noticed it grew as big as the others around it. The tree size was limited by the harsh growing conditions of the altitude. Some trees at 5,000 ft were the size of Christmas trees even though they were sometimes 60 years old!
This relief model of the mountains helped a lot in identifying and understanding exactly what we were seeing from the observation deck. Between us and Mt Olympus, there was an intermediate range.
The dark gray mountains in the foreground are about 8 miles away. What appears to be slightly higher and more snow covered is Mt Olympus (West, Middle and East peaks) which is another 6 miles beyond the closer ones. It is also another 1,000+ feet higher! The perspective and the telephoto lens combine to make them appear like one range.
Zooming in on "Blue Glacier" and Mount Olympus.
Mount Carrie and Carrie Glacier
After diner, we returned to Salt Creek County Park to try to catch a sunset. Unfortunately, the clouds were a little too thick for a colorful sunset but it was still a pretty nice end to the day.
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