The Pacific Northwest
Posted by Jennifer Greever on Sunday, February 28, 2010
When I was in college, working towards my bachelors in Environmental Science, I had the opportunity to spend a summer in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington State, working as a biotech. It was an amazing job that consisted of hiking and backpacking around the park doing surveys for terrestrial (land dwelling) and aquatic (water dwelling) mollusks. I also sampled the water quality of the aquatic sites we visited. The pacific northwest is an absolutely amazing place with a beauty that is different from anywhere else in the continental U.S. Mt. Rainier itself is a dormant volcano that is 14,400 ft. high. It is the most heavily glaciated mountain in the continental United States which means it has the most glaciers at 22. The native wildflowers there are big, bold and beautiful and in numerous places around the park there are huge fields of nothing but wildflowers. Below are some of my favorite things about Mt. Rainier:
Mt. Rainier
Carbon Glacier on the northwest side of the park. This area is unique because the glacier backs up to a temperate rainforest.
Alpine Lily
Glacier Lily
Indian Paintbrush
Lousewort
Anemone....these are my favorite because they remind of the little guys from Fraggle Rock.
During my off-time I took advantage of being in such an amazing place and I traveled around the state. Mt. St. Helen's is only about 100 miles south of Mt. Rainier and was a very cool place to see. Mt. St. Helens erupted in the spring of 1980. It was not a big lava eruption, but one of tremendous pressurized gasses that blew outward from the side of the mountain. The resulting pyroclastic flow, a moving cloud of superheated dust and air, flattened everything within it's path. To this day, there is very little life within the blast zone and all of the trees there on that fateful day in 1980 are crumpled in one direction and blanket the earth. It is quite impressive to see the effects of such a powerful blast!
Ground zero blast zone
Down in the middle of the crater, there is another cinder cone building. Scientists monitor Mt. St. Helen's very closely as it is quite possible it may erupt again. Mt. St. Helen's is considered an active volcano, versus a dormant one like Mt. Rainier.
You can't hike too far up the side of the mountain, for safety sake, but it is what I imagine it would feel like to be on Mars....quiet, lonely and eerie yet beautiful all the same.
Spirit Lake at the bottom of the mountain rose about 200 ft. because of all the sediment that flowed into it. If you look on the north side of the lake there, you can see a giant logjam. These are trees that ended up in the lake from the blast and have made a tree carpet on the top of the lake.
Further out from the blast zone, beyond the blanket of crumpled trees, the trees stand as burned monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature.
I also spent some time in Seattle and the Washington coast. The pacific coast, at least in Oregon and Washington is quite different from what our east coast looks like. The water is cold, it is quite often dreary and rainy and there are huge sea spires riddling the coast line. If you have ever seen The Goonies (and if you haven't you need to rent it today, because it is the best kid adventure movie ever!!) then you should know they have to line up the sea spires, the restaurant and lighthouse with the deblume to find the treasure. That is true to what the Pacific Northwest coastline actually looks like and in fact, The Goonies was filmed in Oregon I believe. Below are some pictures of the Washington and Oregon coastline as well as two pictures from the Hoh rainforest in Olympic National Park.
Oregon Coast, sea spires
Marine life in the tide pools, Oregon coast
Gorilla or sea spire?
Washington coast sea spires
Hoh rainforest, Olympic National Park
Buttressed tree, Hoh rainforest. Buttressed trees occur when you have a downed tree that is decaying and other plants and trees start to grow on top of it. Eventually their roots grow over the tree and into the ground. When the downed tree eventually decays, you have buttressed tree roots like in the above picture.
Mt. Rainier
Carbon Glacier on the northwest side of the park. This area is unique because the glacier backs up to a temperate rainforest.
Alpine Lily
Glacier Lily
Indian Paintbrush
Lousewort
Anemone....these are my favorite because they remind of the little guys from Fraggle Rock.
During my off-time I took advantage of being in such an amazing place and I traveled around the state. Mt. St. Helen's is only about 100 miles south of Mt. Rainier and was a very cool place to see. Mt. St. Helens erupted in the spring of 1980. It was not a big lava eruption, but one of tremendous pressurized gasses that blew outward from the side of the mountain. The resulting pyroclastic flow, a moving cloud of superheated dust and air, flattened everything within it's path. To this day, there is very little life within the blast zone and all of the trees there on that fateful day in 1980 are crumpled in one direction and blanket the earth. It is quite impressive to see the effects of such a powerful blast!
Ground zero blast zone
Down in the middle of the crater, there is another cinder cone building. Scientists monitor Mt. St. Helen's very closely as it is quite possible it may erupt again. Mt. St. Helen's is considered an active volcano, versus a dormant one like Mt. Rainier.
You can't hike too far up the side of the mountain, for safety sake, but it is what I imagine it would feel like to be on Mars....quiet, lonely and eerie yet beautiful all the same.
Spirit Lake at the bottom of the mountain rose about 200 ft. because of all the sediment that flowed into it. If you look on the north side of the lake there, you can see a giant logjam. These are trees that ended up in the lake from the blast and have made a tree carpet on the top of the lake.
Further out from the blast zone, beyond the blanket of crumpled trees, the trees stand as burned monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature.
I also spent some time in Seattle and the Washington coast. The pacific coast, at least in Oregon and Washington is quite different from what our east coast looks like. The water is cold, it is quite often dreary and rainy and there are huge sea spires riddling the coast line. If you have ever seen The Goonies (and if you haven't you need to rent it today, because it is the best kid adventure movie ever!!) then you should know they have to line up the sea spires, the restaurant and lighthouse with the deblume to find the treasure. That is true to what the Pacific Northwest coastline actually looks like and in fact, The Goonies was filmed in Oregon I believe. Below are some pictures of the Washington and Oregon coastline as well as two pictures from the Hoh rainforest in Olympic National Park.
Oregon Coast, sea spires
Marine life in the tide pools, Oregon coast
Gorilla or sea spire?
Washington coast sea spires
Hoh rainforest, Olympic National Park
Buttressed tree, Hoh rainforest. Buttressed trees occur when you have a downed tree that is decaying and other plants and trees start to grow on top of it. Eventually their roots grow over the tree and into the ground. When the downed tree eventually decays, you have buttressed tree roots like in the above picture.
