Quartz Creek Big Trees

August 19, 1993

We headed north from Mt. St. Helens to see where the destruction stopped. Finally, at a point 14 miles from the mountain, we found some trees that were unharmed. The Quartz Creek Big Trees include these massive Douglas firs. We did not know that there were trees so large other than the sequoias and the redwoods.

Brenda had come up with the information about this little-publicized grove of big trees. It was truly a deep woods with very little light filtering to the ground. The pictures are flash pictures or time exposures. It was such a refreshing place after so much devastation, but it is sad to think that other such trees were blown away by St. Helens' blast.

The Douglas fir - a mammoth species of tree that we were not all that much aware of. We had heard the name, but were unaware that they grew so large. We heard figures between five hundred and a thousand years for their ages and heights of 250 feet.

We drove from Quartz Creek past a lovely forest with the late sun streaming through it and reflected upon the forests which had been.

Driving to Morton and north toward Elbe we got the unexpected treat of a clear view of Mt. Ranier from Hwy. 7. It was a fitting reprise for our day's experience. In the morning we drive to Portland and then to Albany, Oregon.