Location Taken: Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008
If you’ve ever wondered what the start of a river looks like, well, here you go!
What, you never wondered?!? Weirdo. (No wait, that’s me.)
Well, ok, it’s not the actual start of the water stream. That’s further uphill, well, upmountain, where there’s still some snowpacks hanging around in June. They’re melting because, well, June, but it’s a slow process. Those small drops find the lowest spot, which makes them gather together and form tiny streams, which then join together into larger ones and so on and so forth until you find yourself in the ocean.
…I actually do wonder what the start of various rivers look like. I mean, there aren’t snowpacks everywhere. I know some go dry when there isn’t enough rain, but others, like the Mississippi, don’t. So I kind of want to visit the headwaters, just to see what it’s like. In that case, it’s Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, and the river looks like any old river at that point, but still!
Though really, the lake is fed by somewhere, and some measuring systems trace the Mississippi up one of its tributaries…
Every so often I get the urge to find a river and follow it all the way to its source, trace where all those water droplets that keep the river flowing actually come from. Only reason I haven’t (besides time and money for such a trip) is because I know actually finding such a source is difficult, due to, say, thick vegetation and swamps and lakes and all that fun stuff. I’d say it has no purpose as well beyond curiosity, but any discovery has an inherent purpose…
