If I Had a Waterfall …

We wouldn’t wonder, not at all
How much fun each day was gonna be.
If I had a mountain top
I know we would never stop
Climbing way high up to look and see.
      By:  Dwight Yoakam

Are you wondering if I’m just pulling these song lyrics out of my head?  Well, some yes and some, no!  This one is a resounding “no!”  But I wanted a song with the word “waterfall” in it, so I did a little Internet research and, voila! Here were the perfect lyrics for me.  I’m thinking by now you must realize that this blog might just possibly include something about a waterfall, and if you thought that, then you are so right!  Do you almost feel like a genius for that?

 

Day 2 in Olympic National Park – We started heading north (or west) on Highway 101.  Our first stop on our way to Lake Crescent was an off-the-highway location called Ancient Groves.  We took this great meandering trail (maybe ½ mile) through the Ancient Grove which really looked a lot like the Hoh Rain Forest that we visited the following day.  It was a great, quick, scenic walk as you will see from the photos below.

 

This is a good example of the heavily wooded forest with an immeasurable amount of moss!

You can barely see it in the photo below, but there's a small creek

winding it's way through this Ancient Grove.

 

Psalms 96:11-13 // Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all it contains; let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the LORD, for He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

 Just another moss-laden photo!  The "bumps" in the forest floor are from deadfalls

that have been covered over by new forest floor growth.

I love this photo of Gary peeking through the trees and moss.

 

Saying "goodbye" to the Ancient Grove!

After we finished groovin’ through the grove we continued on to Lake Crescent.  To kind of give you an idea about the size of Lake Crescent, I did a comparison between Lake Tahoe and Lake Crescent:

• Lake Crescent:  11.8 miles long, 8.01 square miles, 623 feet at its deepest
• Lake Tahoe:  21.7 miles long, 191.6 square miles, 1,644 fee at its deepest

Lake Crescent was formed when glaciers carved out deep valleys during the last Ice Age. Initially the lake valley drained into the Indian Creek Valley and then into the Elwha River.  A great landslide from one of the Olympic Mountains dammed Indian Creek and the deep valley filled with water creating not only Crescent Lake, but nearby Lake Sutherland.

At Lake Crescent we took Barnes Creek Trail to Marymere Falls.  From the upper viewing area, you get a great view of the full fall.  But it was a rigorous last 1/8th of a mile climb up steep steps.  Gary reminded me that he didn't bring the AED with him so I was very careful about  how I climbed up those stairs!

 

The lower viewing area also had a nice platform.  We coerced another visitor to take our picture by taking their picture first (of course!).  After we take theirs how could they refuse our picture request???

 

What I like about this picture is the jumble of logs and debris at the base of the fall.  I don't know ... I just think it looks cool!

 

 Talk about a jumble, how about this root structure intertwined with adjoining trees?  Looks like something out of a medieval or Hobbit forest, don't you think?

 

After the hike we took the dogs for a walk at Lake Crescent. 

Although this photo isn’t anything to write home about, what I really like about it is the three colors of the lake.  I happen to think that is stupendous!