This is the Kootenai River in Idaho from the Kootenai Falls Swinging Bridge. It’s just off of Highway 2 west of Libby, Montana. As you can tell from the small section of sky in the upper left, it was a cloudy day… but the trail that runs across the swinging bridge is a nice way to stretch out the legs after a day or two driving (we were going from Seattle to Whitefish … a couple long days of driving).
These are the Staircase Rapids on the North Fork Skokomish River just a little above the Staircase Ranger Station in the southeast corner of the Olympic National Park. It was a dark wet day and I thought about brightening up the image … but in this case I decided that it reflected the mood of the day as it was.
The Elwha River has been getting a lot of press lately. It is the site of one of the largest dam removal projects to date. Salmon runs are returning in numbers (miles and miles of recovered salmon breeding habitat), the delta is being rebuilt and numerous species (including bears and birds) are benefiting from the decaying salmon carcasses.
The section shown here is between the two dams that were removed (the Elwha Dam below this point and the Glines Canyon Dam above).
The image above shows the North Fork Skokomish river just above the Staircase area in the Olympic National Park. If you look closely, you can see the bridge that runs across the river … providing access tof the Staircase Loop Trail. This is a very wide angle lens … which causes the curvature distortion. The image below is taken from the bridge looking further downriver.
At the bottom, a section of the North Fork Skokomish trail running through Maple Flats, about 6 miles up from the Staircase area.
These two photos are taken from the middle of the bridge across the North Fork Skokomish at Six Stream, which comes into the North Fork just south of the bridge. The bridge is just about 6 miles up the North Fork Skokomish trail …
The Six Ridge trailhead is just at the upper end of the bridge … and that trail is one of the most rugged, least traveled and least maintained in the Olympic National Park. One that I have contemplated hiking in the past, but never got around to. (that’s what happens when you have a full time job)
