April 23^th-24^th  the weather was sunny initially and then started raining Saturday evening. Sunday along the coast was cool, windy and rainy most of the day.

Having never taken an environment class here at the UW or really any class like it I was not sure really what to expect going into this fieldtrip. My focus going into the weekend was to absorb as much as I possibly could about the natural history of the area, given that it may be a while before I would get the chance to visit Olympic National Park again. Needless to say I was excited to take it all in.

We decided that we would first head out to the Marymere Falls. Along the shady and damp understory there were many plants I was able to identify from my time in Ravenna Park. There was an abundance of sword fern, different from the lady fern because of its longer and narrower leaflets shaped like a sword, and Devil’s Club, a plant with heftier stems covered in spines and large green leaves with many lobes. While heading to the falls we saw plenty of Douglas Firs, recognized by their cones, a lot of western hemlocks of all sizes, distinguished by their uneven needles and on the shorter trees the floppy top. Some other cool aspects of the understory that we saw were nursing logs and an erratic boulder. As we started to get closer to the water fall we saw there were more ferns and moss because of the dampness.

After the water fall we wanted to hike up to storm king ridge. I did not anticipate, the severity of the slope we had to climb. However, the view at the top of the mountain was absolutely worth it. I loved seeing all of the large pacific Madrones on the sides of the steep hill, where they could get a little more sunlight. Their shedding bark, large leaves, and white flowers were stunning. I noticed that they were often seen on steeper slopes where they could almost grow horizontally where they could get more. Among other notable species, there were some western red cedars and some yellows cedars. While on the way down the hill we saw an albino banana slug too!

Sunday, we went to the tide pools out on the straight of Juan de Fuca. It started raining extremely hard and a few of us got caught out on the rocks in some very stormy weather. The coolest part of the whole weekend was seeing a bald eagle swoop down from flying above the clouds, with its wings fully spread. While looking through the tide pools, we saw a giant sea star, purple sea urchin, anemone, chitons, limpets, hermit crab, and some sort of jellyfish that looked like a shell. There was also an interesting herb like shrub that we found at the river delta we visited. It had a strong herbal smell when we tore it up. The leaves had a shiny topside and the bottom was more a white. I would be curious to know what the species was. We also saw a variety of different gulls out in the delta, feeding on a bunch of clams.