Olympic National Park

July 24 and 25 I spent some time north of Mount Rainier doing some orchid hunting and then went on to Olympic National Park and spent the evening and the next day orchid hunting and sightseeing there.  My wife was unable to go with me for reasons I can't remember, and so the trip was not as much fun as usual.  I've already done a post about the Mount Rainier area and this post covers the Olympic part of the excursion.  The weather was not the greatest but I found the orchids I was looking for, saw some of the wonderful scenery of the Olympics and did a lot of photography.

That first evening I drove up the Hurricane Ridge Road.

I stopped at several places to take picture of the orchids and other wildflowers,

Indian Thistle,

Mountain Larkspur,

 Sierra Rein Orchis.

At the end of the road, beyond the visitors' center I hiked the trail along the ridge.

I found there what I was looking for, a Dwarf form of the Alaskan Piperia,

along with Common Harebells,

Harsh Paintbrush,

and one of my favorite Wildflowers, Mountain Owl's Clover.

On the way back down I stopped briefly at the visitors' center for pictures,

and further down for more orchids,

what appeared to be a natural hybrid of Piperia. 

I spent a cozy night in the back of the van which is set up for sleeping,

and the next morning visited the harbor at Port Angeles before heading on.

Finished photographing the sunrise, I headed for Crescent Lake and some orchid hunting there.

I found the orchid I was looking for and found several new locations for it.

The Stream Orchid or Chatterbox.

On a side road I found another of the Piperias, the Long-spurred Piperia.

I made one last drive up the Deer Park Road to see two more Piperias,

and found a lot of Candystick in bloom as well.

The two orchids were the Alaskan Piperia and the Slender White Piperia.