ABC Wednesday-O

O is for Ohanapecosh and Owyhigh Lakes.

Click the logo for the home of ABC Wednesday
where Mrs. Nesbitt hosts ABC Wednesday.

Trail at Ohanapecosh

One of the major habitat zones at Mt. Rainier National Park is Ohanapecosh. (It's pronounced just like it's spelled. Accent the han and the cosh.) Ohanepecosh is an area of lowland old growth forest. The characteristics of old growth forest are that it is ODD.
footbridge on the Ohanepecosh River

No, the forest really isn't strange at Ohanapecosh. ODD stands for old, dead, and diverse. The Old Growth forest is full of old trees. Included among them is the Grove of the Patriarchs just north of the Ohanapecosh area near the Stevens Canyon entrance to the park. When my third grade class went to the Grove of the Patriarchs, we circled one of the trees holding hands. That's how big that one was.

~

The old growth forest is full of dead and decaying material which enriches the soil. You will frequently find "nurse logs", (now I'm going to have to go find a picture of a nurse log, but I will post it some other time.) decaying fallen trees which have young trees growing from them. Snags provide habitat for dozens if not hundreds of critters.

~

The old growth forest is diverse. You would be amazed at how many different varieties of trees, ferns, flowers, mushrooms, mosses, lichens, birds, insects, and other critters live there.

Ohanapecosh River

There were around 200 campsites in the forest at Ohanapecosh Campground. Campsite 26 in the C used to be to the right of this sign. On November 6, 2006, 18 inches of rain fell within 36 hours.

And this happened.
About half the C Loop went the way of C26--at least for the 2007 season.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My hiking book says it is about a 3½ hour round trip hike to Owyhigh Lakes (pronounced o-I-hi) from the White River Road. NOT!
~
It is a beautiful hike, though. We did it in August.

From the Eastside Road, the following October, it took us about five hours to reach the lakes. Autumn had fallen on the meadows. This was about a month before the floods.