On the drive back, we drove through Hoh reservation and the nearby rainforest. When most people think of rainforest they think of tropical rainforest in South America and Africa. Jacqueline told me that there is also small amounts of temperate rainforest in the world.
(c) Walter Sigmund
This is an important area of rainforest as it is quite rare. The rainforest provides a wonderful lush green canopy of trees and with mosses and ferns create a home for many animals. There is an almost ancient feel about rainforests as if any minute a dinosaur might poke its head out of the trees.
I enjoyed crossing the beautiful Hoh River which is fast running in the winter and flows more gently in the summer. The river is also full of salmon, my favourite fish. Fishing is important to the Hoh tribe as well.
(c) National Park Service
The Hoh River connects the glaciers in the mountains to tidal waters on the coast. Glaciersare large areas of ice that move slowly across land. All of the land area that has water that drains into one common source is called a watershed. The Hoh watershed includes the mountains, the river, and the ocean that the river drains into. The health of a watershed can affect the ocean. A healthy river can help maintain all of the complicated factors in an ocean ecosystem, while an unhealthy river can hurt the ocean’s ecosystems.
No comments:
Post a Comment