The Olympic National Park opened up the Staircase Rapids Loop Trail on July 8th for the first time since the fire in 2025 devastated the area. The valley of the North Fork Skokomish was one of my favorite locations and I went to take photos of the area on the 8th. Each set of photos shows the same location before and after. Some images aren’t exact matches … but I did as well as I could with the images I had. The Staircase Loop Trail leaves from the Staircase Ranger Station, runs 1 mile (1.6 KM), crosses the river (on a bridge that was protected from the fire) and returns back to the parking lot.
Today’s post shows a couple of the spots running up the trail to the bridge across the river. This side of the river was not as heavily devasted as the opposite side.
What a big difference! But nature will fully heal given enough time.
Yes, nature does that
Allan, thanks for sharing. Hopefully, it will grow back to the way it was soon. In Western Carolina, they are still recovering from Helene, which caused catastrophic destruction across several towns in Western North Carolina. I-40 is still partially open and prefer route is to take I-81 thru Tennessee.
Yes, a difficult recovery there, for sure. Different, but difficult