Also called “Lady Slippers”, these are some of my favorite springtime flowers. Most of the orchids that are native to the Pacific Northwest are even smaller and less showy than these.
Calypso Orchids
Lowland Woods
As much as I enjoy the high country, this time of year there just isn’t much access available in the Olympics. So it’s the lowlands. There are plenty of good hikes that are (mostly) snow-free all year, with pleasant views and interesting features. This trail runs out of Dosewallips State Park on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. The Nurse Stump was amazing and the small creek provided a wonderful sound track.
Backlit Mossy Trees
One of the things I enjoy about winter in the Olympics is seeing all the moss on the trees being backlit by sunshine. Of course, being Western Washington (let alone rain forest type environment), there aren’t a lot of days in the late fall or winter when you can get a sunny day. This was shot with my Nikon F6 on Tri-X, so I don’t have a color version for you to compare.
But I really enjoy the backlit, glowing green moss outlining each limb of these big leaf maples.
See below for a look at the trail we were hiking.
Alpine Meadows
These photos are from the Upper Duckabush area of the Olympic National Park. I really liked the Elephants Head … this was the only time I had seen it. Getting low to capture it allowed me to also get the ridgeline in the image, which really gives it a lot of context that would be missing otherwise.
The image below is a more typical mossy streamlet running through the alpine area. I enjoy the rich greens of the various varieties of mosses … a visual feast.
Mossy Limbs
The old saying that moss grows on the north side of trees doesn’t work so well in the rain forest (or the Olympic National Park in general). Nice to have the sun providing some backlighting for this.