North Fork Snoqualmie - 21 June 2014

I'm not going to describe the location in more detail, because the subject of the final photo is a rare plant and I don't want to give the location away. An unexpected added treat was a peat bog along the way, which is rapidly expanding by a processes called paludification (whereby land, not water, is transformed into a bog). One doesn't normally see that happen at latitudes this low. What has happened was beavers dammed the outlet of a boggy lake shortly after the area around it had been clear-cut by loggers, and first Sphagnum moss then other bog plants quickly colonized the now-waterlogged acid soil. Add that to how the soil was already doubtless very acid to start with (this is a high-rainfall area with coniferous forests and granitic soils, all factors that promote soil acidity), and enough factors were there to tip the scales to former forest starting the process to becoming bog.