Here’s another comparison between a main trail: above see the Dosewallips trail where the forest is reclaiming the old road and below, where a spur trail runs down to a unofficial campsite along the river.
Trail Comparison
Leaves or No Leaves
It seems that there are differences in how individual trees in a particular location respond to the advent of fall … leaf coloration and leaf retention. For instance, the image above was taken the same day as the image below … and just a short distance away on the Dosewallips River trail in the Olympic National Forest. I suppose some difference is genetic and some is due to the amount of water each gives in comparison to the other.
More Autumn Colors
I have visited the Dosewallips River Trail for the last few years during autumn for the colors of the maples (both Big Leaf Maples and Vine Maples). Prior to moving to Port Townsend, I would hike up the North Fork Skokomish valley (in Olympic National Park) … it being my favorite valley and closest to Olympia, where I lived at the time. The Dosewallips valley is offers some differences compared to the North Fork Skok … the Dose is in the National Forest (not the National Park) and there are many more big leaf maples along the Dose, whereas the Skok has more vine maples. The North Fork Skokomish is a lot further away from Port Townsend and has just burned this year and is still closed to entry.
Backlit Fall Colors
More images from the fall colors along the Dosewallips River trail in the Olympic National Forest. The maples here usually are covered in moss. I try to get images where the moss is backlit and causing a green halo around the trunks and limbs. It’s hard to get that to stand out and get the rest of the image properly exposed. Post-production in LIghtroom helps, but it still isn’t perfect, in my opinion. The image below I’m happier with.
Trail Variations
There’s a wide range of trails in the Olympic National Park. Some are well maintained (see below), and some and not so well maintained (like this one). The above image shows the ‘trail’ running above the Elwha Basin to the Elwha Snowfinger and Dodwell-Rixon Pass … one access point for one of the classic backcountry traverses of the Olympics (the Bailey Range Traverse). While I would have liked the basin trail to be well maintained … while we were hiking it … if all the trails were wide and well-maintained, there would be much larger numbers of people hiking them. There are few areas where one can still experience the solitude of nature … lack of trail maintenance protects this solitude. Trail maintenance just needs to be fully funded … there are millions of dollars of maintenance that is backlogged. The trail below is a section of the trail to the Enchanted Valley … another extremely popular destination.
