Location Taken: Olympic National Park, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008
All along the highway that heads between the Olympic Mountains and the coastline of Washington are signs that say stuff like “Giant Tree! Next Left!”
Admittedly, if you want giant trees, that is a really good place for it. It may not be the sequoias of southern California, or the redwoods of northern California, but trees grow big all along the west coast of the USA. And this particular corner of the coast does quite well for itself. There’s plenty of rain and no strong thunderstorms to knock down any trees that dare to grow too high.
We stopped at three or so of the giant trees. Admittedly, they’re rather tough to photograph. Photos don’t do scale that well. In this photo, well, all the gnarled wood you see? That’s all part of one large cedar tree, about, what, 10 feet across?
That’s what a lot of the giant trees here are, cedars. They don’t grow as tall as, say, redwoods, but they expand outwards quite happily. They also have a tendency to become very gnarled and start losing bark when they get too big, which does put a damper on things. It’s still quite impressive to stand next to a tree that has age written into its every surface. These are trees that show their age, and are proud of it!
