A Little Fall Color

Hoh Rainforest, 10/23/09-10/25/09

When I was a young girl, my family would spend a week in the Hoh Rainforest every other summer. Some summers were wetter than others and I can remember hours spent inside our trailer reading as rain pattered on the roof and windows. There was something special in the rainforest. I knew it even then. So now when I want some time to feel the primal forces of life, I head to the rainforest. I love the rainforest in the summer, but began to appreciate what the forest had to offer in the autumn and will often take refuge in the cooler damper days of October.

This year I took a group of photographers with me to explore the old growth trees adorned with thick moss. We camped in the campground inside the park and woke to elk foraging through the undergrowth. A few of my fellow campers gathered at a safe distance to set up cameras as the elk settled in for a mid-morning nap. We took our leave of the dozing elk to meander through the Hall of Mosses nature trail.

We stopped to photograph a Pileated Woodpecker high on a snag. A stream then held our attention for a while before we started up the hill to the trail. Our group laughed and talked and photographed all morning and early afternoon. On our way out wee were stopped by the sighting of a Northern Pygmy Owl and we just couldn't seem to tear ourselves away. But we had to as the promise of a sunset at Ruby Beach was becoming more of a reality.

As we sat at Ruby Beach waiting for the sun to lower below the horizon we noticed our promise of color would be blocked by a fast approaching cloud bank. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I began to photograph the waves as they came up the beach. Their foam trails heading back out to sea excited me and the rest of the group had to pull me away for dinner.

The next morning, the elk had moved on and so would we - onto Sol Duc Falls and more moss-covered forest. Each photographer that had joined me on my outing to my corner of living forest came away with great memories, photos and stories.