Mountains
Profiled in this gallery are the two major mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest: the Olympic Mountains of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington; and the Cascade Range, which extends from British Columbia to northern California.
The Olympics are not particularly tall, with some of its highest peaks reaching 7,000 feet but they are home to approximately 60 glaciers, beautiful alpine tundra, and some of best old growth forests in the world.
The much larger and taller Cascades lie about 100 to 150 inland from the Pacific Ocean and are both volcanic and non-volcanic in makeup. The former are some of the Northwest’s famous stratovolcanos, including Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens in Washington and Mount Hood in Oregon - also known as the High Cascades. This gallery highlights a sample of the endless trails, vistas, and wilderness areas from both mountain ranges.
click here for the gallery
Coast
A significant stretch of the Oregon and Washington coast is wild and untamed due to the rocky nature of the landscape. The coast has long experienced the powerful erosive power of the ocean as the tide ebbs and flows, battering the land in the process.
Over millennia, this constant erosion has slowly produced sea stacks, perhaps the Northwest’s coast most iconic feature. These giant rock monoliths vary in size, shape, and density but they are primarily the remains of ancient headlands formerly attached to the mainland. They remain standing after the land around them fell to the power of the relentless waves, particularly during storm season.
This guide focuses on the beaches and coastline populated by these beautiful, immense, and occasionally eerie coastal features.
Click here for the guide
Waterfalls
Washington and Oregon are both home to one of the greatest collections of waterfalls in the world. The near-constant precipitation that falls during the approximately eight-month wet season, combined with the heavy snowfall that blankets the higher elevation mountains and then melts in the spring creates abundant water flow. In fact, enough flow to generate thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of waterfalls, many of which are unnamed and/or undiscovered. The mountainous landscape of both states are optimal terrain for waterfalls to cascade down from the peaks above.
These two guides (one for each state) are in no way purporting to serve as an exhaustive showcase of all waterfalls in Washington and Oregon; that would be both impractical and impossible. This is, however, a gallery on what I believe are the most photogenic waterfalls that I’ve had an opportunity to visit and photograph so far. Waterfalls which are beautiful and awe-inspiring in their own particular way.
Washington waterfalls guide
Oregon waterfalls guide
Forests
The enormous, ancient trees that live in the Pacific Northwest are among the tallest, widest, oldest, and most massive in the world with individual lifespans reaching 500 to 2,000 years. These forests have more than twice the volume of biomass per unit of area as the world’s tropical rainforests and support huge varieties of mosses lichens, ferns, and shrubs in addition to countless mammals, birds, and insects. For the most part, the six reports below highlight the five giant tree species of the region: coastal redwood, western red cedar, Douglas fir, Sikta spruce, and western hemlock trees.
