RHH's photos with the keyword: western red cedar

Last spring for the first time I hiked the Stimpson Family Nature Reserve near Bellingham, an 350 acre area of natural beauty donated to the city of Bellingham by the Stimpson family. There are six miles of trails and I hiked most of them. There was not much in bloom, but the old growth forest, beaver ponds and unspoiled nature made the hike worthwhile.

Taken along one of the trails at along Padden Ridge in Lake Padden Park. The trees are mostly Western Red Cedar with an understory of Sea Grape, Huckleberry, Elderberry, Vine Maple, Sword Fern and other plants.

The Grove of the Patriarchs is on the eastern side of Mount Rainier National Park and is a small area of old growth forest, Western Red Cedars, Western Hemlocks and Douglas Firs, some of them over 1000 years old, that is on a small island in the Ohanapecosh River and the area around it. This is actually part of the trail to the island, but shows one of these massive old trees, a Western Red Cedar. The day was at an end when we visited the area and the light was fading fast, so I did not get very many good pictures.

This is one of those photos in which I am trying to capture something of what our forests are like and what it is like to hike them in them. The photo was taken on a Memorial Day hike with son Edward in the Chuckanut Mountains. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-chuckanuts.html