These two images are from the Staircase area of Olympic National Park in autumn. I enjoy the autumn hikes when the weather is clear … there aren’t nearly so many people on the trails as in the summer and the yellow of the leaves makes a nice splash of color.
This lovely little falls is located on the Constance Pass trail in the Olympic National Park. There are so many of these falls scattered throughout the park that most have no names. This stream is an unnamed tributary to Sunny Brook.
Some spots in the high country are easier to get to than others. The ones that are easy to get to tend to be crowded. The ones that are harder to get to are … well, harder to get to. The result is that there typically are a lot fewer folks and the impact is less. That also means the trails tend to be rougher … or sometimes look nothing like a trail so much as a track through the meadows. Martin’s Park is one of those … it sits in a remote portion of the Olympic National Park with a minimum of a 16 mile hike to get there (and that’s the short route). There are quite a few folks that hike close to it … it sits near the Low Divide, on one of the main routes for those wishing to traverse the Olympic Park. The crossing now runs just about 50 miles … so those doing the hike tend to not have a lot of extra time for side trips. It’s beautiful country, though.
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.
