One of the striking attributes of the entire Olympic Peninsula to me is the scale of things. Everything feels larger than one might expect. I imagine this is largely due to the size of trees. They're everywhere, in one form or another. Either standing tall and healthy in thick forest, or the remnant trunks of massive trees chopped to the ground, or harvested as they like to refer to the process up north. The word enormous takes on new meaning as one emerges from a forest trail to the beach, forced to navigate the chaotic tangle of countless, supernaturally large fallen sitka spruce, red cedars and others that have toppled into the ocean and been repeatedly storm battered against the shore, deposited and stranded at low tide to greet the beach comber. Standing atop the twisted pile of ancient wood one ponders the unimaginable force required to toss these gigantic wood corpses too and frow.
Olympic National Park Entrance, Washington.