Rain forest elk & deer country

Okanagan · September 26, 2014, 11:39:26 PM

When Code was elk hunting recently, on the last afternoon when there was not time to get an elk out of a canyon we hunted lower country, fairly flat and close to roads. More elk and more hunters down there. Thought you might have interest in some pics of real rain forest. Photos taken within 50 yards off a logging road where we stopped to hunt for a bit, nothing special, normal for that country. The only thing unusual was that the sun was shining, driest I've ever seen rain forest.

The stump below is at least 14 feet high, spring board notches from the faller still visible on the other side. These old stumps were cut with axe and crosscut saw.

We saw a small herd of elk within half a mile of this spot, no bull confirmed in the bunch and they didn't stick around. The little clover like plants on the ground in the pics above taste like green apples and elk eat them. You can see how we tracked a wounded elk once for 8 1/2 hours over a mile and a half and only saw one track made in dirt: when he stepped on a gopher mound.

It was so dark even with the sun shining and without the huge never-logged old growth, that if I left the camera on auto it used a flash on every photo.

riverboss · September 27, 2014, 05:15:05 AM

That is very cool!

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HaMeR · September 27, 2014, 05:42:31 AM

That's what's hidden in all those wonderful panoramic pics you & Code post here!!

I think those pics are really cool. Thank You for sharing!!

Okanagan · September 27, 2014, 10:21:52 AM

Thanks. Thought it might be of interest.

edited to delete the travelogue of rainfall stats, flora and fauna and anti-logging that has devastated the economy there.

FOsteology · September 27, 2014, 01:58:36 PM

Looks familiar and brings back some memories! I hunted mostly out of Matheney Ridge, between the Queets River and Amanda Park.

Okanagan · September 27, 2014, 02:34:34 PM

Yep, good memories. When I lived in WA I hunted out there one weekend.

Dave · September 27, 2014, 02:40:50 PM

Great pictures, Okanagan. Looks like it'd be very tough to hunt, and I couldn't imagine packing anything out of there.

FOsteology · September 27, 2014, 02:48:49 PM

The name Hook Branch doesn't sound familiar, but the view you describe does indeed. I never did any elk hunting. I was only there three years in a row to hunt bear and predators in August and once in Sept.

2007 was the last time I was out that way. At that time there was some logging going on out in Clearwater area.

Some nasty dark growth out there in the rain forest. Step off the path, and one can literally get "swallowed up" by the rain forest. It's that dang thick! Several areas where we saw elk would have been a nightmare to pack out if one killed. Steep terrain.

Very dry during the summer (July through early Sept.), but from all the washouts and uprooted trees and debris it's quite easy to see how much rainfall the area gets during the rest of the year. The runoff rises the creeks and rivers tremendously, and the water definitely carves out a huge swath.

The old growth tree stumps are mind boggling. Saw several stumps that their circumference was so large, you could park a Ford F-350 longbed on the stump and still have room!

Quite different terrain from Tejas!

JohnP · September 27, 2014, 02:51:44 PM

Great pictures. Definitely a young man's hunt. Reminds me of some places I've been in, in other parts of the world.

Okanagan · September 27, 2014, 10:00:21 PM

John, I can see some of the why you chose the open desert as a place to live.

Lotta odd sounding Indian names in that country: Humptulips, Hoh, La Push, Tahola, Queets, Quinalt, Wynoochee, Kalaloch, Tatoosh, and moving east on the Peninsula, Elwah, Hamma Hamma, Lilliwap, Quilcene, Dosewallips, Duckabush, etc.

FinsnFur · September 28, 2014, 09:08:20 AM

Wow those are some cool pics. The hanging moss makes the place look haunted

Thanks for sharing those.

MI VHNTR · September 28, 2014, 08:01:12 PM

VERY nice pictures of an entirely different type of forest that I'm used to seeing. Thanks for sharing them.

coyote101 · September 28, 2014, 09:46:45 PM

Great pictures indeed.

Thanks for sharing them.

Pat

Hawks Feather · September 28, 2014, 10:38:28 PM

Neat pics, but at the same time that place looks rather spooky. Maybe that is BigFoot hair in those trees.

Jerry

Okanagan · September 29, 2014, 11:09:24 AM

Quote from: Hawks Feather on September 28, 2014, 10:38:28 PM
Neat pics, but at the same time that place looks rather spooky. Maybe that is BigFoot hair in those trees.

Jerry

It is a spooky place to people like me who did not grow up there. Not as spooky as John's jungles but dark and weird and hung with moss like a Halloween costume party. It is so dark on a cloudy day at noon that my old eyes need binoculars or a light to see details a few yards away. Blacktail deer don't show white on their rump/tail and sneak around in there like ghosts.

FYI these pics were taken close by a wide main logging road, which shows in a few pics as a light grey patch. Most of the sunlight and any trace of sky seen in the pics is visible only because of the road strip that is open to the sky. In an old growth section (with ancient trees never logged) it is like a cathedral with giant trees 10-18 feet or more in diameter rising like giant columns in the green moss gloom.

A logger who grew up there told me while we were fishing this summer that in Viet Nam his patrol found a VC hole, withdrew to get some help, and then could not find it again. He told the LT that he recognized a particular tree and knew the way. The LT laughed and said nobody could tell one tree from another. "I can," he said, and took them right to it.

Hawks Feather · September 29, 2014, 10:08:09 PM

I have looked at the pictures again and am pretty certain that I could get lost on the logging trail. And if I even ventured into the woods it would be 'lights out' in more ways than one.

Jerry

msmith · September 30, 2014, 07:29:33 AM

I agree with Jerry. That is so cool, but I could turned around real easy in that forest.

JohnP · September 30, 2014, 09:43:34 PM

"A logger who grew up there told me while we were fishing this summer that in Viet Nam his patrol found a VC hole, withdrew to get some help, and then could not find it again. He told the LT that he recognized a particular tree and knew the way. The LT laughed and said nobody could tell one tree from another. "I can," he said, and took them right to it."

Boy do I have a good story about that.

Okanagan · October 03, 2014, 09:48:28 AM

Quote from: JohnP on September 30, 2014, 09:43:34 PM
"A logger who grew up there told me while we were fishing this summer that in Viet Nam his patrol found a VC hole, withdrew to get some help, and then could not find it again. He told the LT that he recognized a particular tree and knew the way. The LT laughed and said nobody could tell one tree from another. "I can," he said, and took them right to it."

Boy do I have a good story about that.

I suppose we will have to join you for a glass of sun tea to hear that story. Fair enough.

JohnP · October 03, 2014, 03:53:10 PM

Quote from: Okanagan on October 03, 2014, 09:48:28 AM
Quote from: JohnP on September 30, 2014, 09:43:34 PM
"A logger who grew up there told me while we were fishing this summer that in Viet Nam his patrol found a VC hole, withdrew to get some help, and then could not find it again. He told the LT that he recognized a particular tree and knew the way. The LT laughed and said nobody could tell one tree from another. "I can," he said, and took them right to it."

Boy do I have a good story about that.

I suppose we will have to join you for a glass of sun tea to hear that story. Fair enough.

Forthcoming, I been going to PT every morning and "things" don't always work like they should.