The territory embraced in the Olympic National Monument is now
proposed for use as a National Park. It occupies the extreme northwest
corner of the United States, a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and
Puget Sound. It is dominated by the precipitous and heavily
snow-capped Olympic Mountains. These snowy summits attracted the
attention of the explorer Vancouver, who named the mountains the
Olympics. Their lower slopes are heavily forested with gigantic trees,
and beneath these there is an undergrowth of almost bewildering
luxuriance. This undergrowth is a jungle in itself. Many of the trees
are heavily and picturesquely roped and bearded with moss. The
openness which characterizes the Sierra or Rocky Mountain forests is
absent. Gigantic tree-trunks lie scattered over the forest floor. Many
of these fell centuries ago and are water-soaked, half-rotten, and
covered with moss a foot thick. Here and there a living tree, a
century or more of age, is standing upon a fallen one. Others are lost
in the tangle of vines, huge ferns, and vigorous wild flowers that
crowd the floor of the woods. Even at midday the forest reposes in
twilight.
The region is extremely difficult to penetrate and explore. The
streams, even during the period of low water, are almost too swift for
boats, and the tangled jungle-growth, produced by abundant moisture
and a mild climate, compels the explorer to chop every foot of the way
he advances. Until recent years trappers, who were supposed to go
everywhere, were content to work around its outskirts. Even the
adventurous prospector passed it by, and searched the earth over for
gold before seeking in the heart of the Olympics. Through the
combined efforts of government agents, individuals, and organizations,
the region has at last been pretty well explored. Both in exploring
this Olympic region and in endeavoring to have a part of its primeval
scenes saved in a park, the Mountaineers Club of Seattle has taken an
aggressive part.
Up to the altitude of about four thousand feet the mountains are
wrapped in dense green and heavy forest gloom. Then come the scattered
grassy, flowery, snowy openings. Timber-line, kept low by the
excessive snowfall, is at about fifty-five hundred feet altitude, one
thousand feet lower than in the Alps, and six thousand feet below the
forest frontier on the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The summit slopes
are a broken array of snow-fields, ice-piles, and glaciers. Above the
timber-line, vast, deep snow-fields cover much of the area. These
white summits show from far out at sea.
Mount Olympus, with an altitude of 8250 feet, is the highest peak.
Among the other commanding peaks are Meany, Cougar, and Seattle.
The climate, tempered by the warm sea, is mild. Probably no other
region in the United States has a heavier rainfall and snowfall. From
sixty to one hundred feet of snow is deposited over it each winter.
The only comparatively rainless months are July and August. The rain,
and the water from the ice- and snow-fields, supply numerous steeply
inclined streams, which descend in roaring waterfalls and in long,
leaping wild cascades.
This region excels in the number and crowded conditions of large tree
growth, and the impenetrable luxuriance of undergrowth. Hemlock,
cedar, spruce, and fir predominate. While the hemlock is the most
common tree here, the cedar is the most striking. The latter is a
strangely stiff and mysterious tree of rather stocky growth. In this
moist, mild clime it finds conditions for development almost ideal.
The two kinds of cedar are the Alaska and the red. Thousands of acres
here may be seen crowded with tall trees that will average five feet
or more in diameter and one hundred and fifty feet in height. Trees
twelve feet in diameter are not uncommon, and the United States
Geological Survey reports one with a diameter of twenty-eight feet!
Thousands of acres of red fir trees may also be found in which the
average height of the trees is two hundred and forty feet!
Wild flowers are everywhere. They edge the snow-fields, cover the
breaks in the cliffs, line the streams, and bank with bloom the fallen
forest patriarchs. Among the common blossoms are the lovely
cassiope,--white heather,--mountain anemone, phlox, and "Indian basket
grass."
[Illustration: MOUNT ST. HELENS
From the Timber-Line Trail on Mount Rainier]
This is the home of the gigantic Olympic Roosevelt elk, and among the
other common animals are the bear, deer, wolf, fox, lynx, otter, and
beaver. The streams are simply crowded with trout. Bald eagles are
found, and there is an array of flickers, woodpeckers, warblers,
jays, sparrows, and hummingbirds. The solitudes of this sylvan park
are cheered with the melody of the water-ouzel, the Alaska hermit
thrush, and the winter wren.
But the mountain summits are significant as view-points. From them one
commands the sea, islands, and the broken shore of the Pacific. Bright
Puget Sound, with a scattering of dark islands and ragged edges, fills
the foreground. Looking toward the southeast across the darkly
forested mountains through which rolls the Columbia, one enjoys a view
vast and imposing. The dark forest cover is pierced by three
snow-laden and steaming sleeping volcanoes. The most impressive one of
these is Mount Rainier, with a score of enormous glaciers covering
head and shoulders. Another one is Mount Adams. But the most
exquisitely beautiful of all the peaks which the summits of the
Olympics command is Mount St. Helens. The head and shoulders of this
mountain rise a perfect snowy cone above the purple forest robe and
stand as perfectly poised as a Greek statue of marble.
The Olympic National Park should include about three hundred square
miles. What a splendid attraction if this area of primeval scenes and
forests were kept in a state of nature!