Get Out and Enjoy Mother Nature Today

I’m going backpacking this weekend so I wanted to use a hiking picture of some type in my photo blog today.  This is the Quinault Rain Forest in Olympic National Park in Washington state.  My hike today will be in a very different place –the Hill Country of Texas.  You can find this pic and others from both Washington State and Texas in my gallery on my web site.

I’ve been hiking in Olympic National Park since I was a kid and I can say without a doubt, there is no place like it anywhere else in the world.  I could write a different blog everyday about the park and never run out of material. The Quinault Rain Forest is a narrow stretch of land that sits on the Pacific Coast.  Other than its remote location, 140 inches of rain a year, massive contribution to the world’s ecosystem and abundant wildlife of bears, cougars, deer and other animals, it also has some of the tallest trees in the world.  In fact, there are 6 “champion” trees in the rain forest including the largest Mountain Hemlock, Western Hemlock , Sitka Spruce (over 1,000 years old), Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir which is the tallest of any tree in the world at 302 feet.  Just walking and camping among these giants is an awesome adventure.

This weekend’s trip will be very different but equally enjoyable.  I’ll be hiking in enchanted Rock State Park in the Texas Hill Country.  While the trees are barely 30 feet tall, the park has it’s own natural beauty.  Enchanted Rock is one of the most popular parks in all of Texas for camping and rock climbing and it has it’s own unique characteristics.  For example, the Tonkawa Indians used to say they could see ghost fires flicker at the top of the rock and could hear weird creaking and groaning.  Geologists now know this actually comes from the rock’s heating during the hot Texas days and cooling at night.  Whether you’re hiking in the cold, rainy climate among the tallest trees in the world, or in one of the largest underground rock formations uncovered by erosion, getting back to nature is all part of the journey.