Tag: Grassland

Mima Mounds Natural Area

Mima Mounds

This Natural Area is south of Olympia just west of I-5. There are a number of walking trails through the mounds and a lot of signs explaining the history of the area. It’s pretty amazing. There are approximately 8-10 mounds per acre, measuring 1–7 feet (0.30–2.13 m) in height and having diameters 8–40 feet (2.4–12.2 m). The origin of the mounds is unknown with a number of alternate hypotheses including shaking from earthquakes while glacial outwash material is uncompacted, animal (gopher, etc) construction and windblown sediment accumulation around plants, among others. Regardless of origin, they make a very interesting walk.

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Different Forest Types

Open Pine Woods / Grasslands

I have been posting a lot of views of the Olympic National Park and the big trees. I spend a lot of time there, mostly since it’s close to home. But occasionally I do travel to other areas and experience nature in other environments. The image above shows some open pine woods and grasslands down in California in Inyo National Forest. At least that’s my memory … my notes are sketchy on that trip.

On the other hand, the image below is back up in Washington, but down along the Nisqually River Delta area in a section of the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge that is no long accessible. What a difference in woods.

Marshlands and River Banks
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Lunchbreak Views

View looking West

These two shots were taken while I was on the hike up Hurricane Hill in the Olympic National Park (described some in my last post). We stopped at a bench to sit and eat a snack lunch. I thought that they showed the difference in the environment in a relatively short distance. Looking west you look across the Elwha River valley to the Bailey Range, on the far side of which is the Hoh Rainforest. Meanwhile, below is the area just below the summit of Hurricane Hill and a look at one of the drier areas of the Olympics (near the western boundary of the rain shadow).

View Looking North
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Standing Stones

Standing Stone (Avebury)

Avebury is a collection of Neolithic henge stones (near Avebury, Wiltshire, England) including three stone circles … including the largest in the world. These standing stones were not part of a circle, but I thought the one in the foreground was amazing. They were set in the ground around 3000 BC. While not as famous as Stonehenge, it is a much larger complex.

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