Soleduck Falls, Olympic Peninsula The Soleduck River falls at a point deep inside the Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. There's a very easy walk of less than a mile to get to the falls themselves, and the walk is spectacular in its own right. I can only hope that I've captured some of its beauty here... If you'd like to see some maps to locate where this is, click here to spawn a new page. A note on spelling. There seem to be two common variations applied to the falls, the river, the hot springs resort, and the area. They are "Soleduck" and "Sol Duc", and depending on which map you read, they can be mixed up any which way. I'm going for "Sol Duc" hot springs, and "Soleduck" everything else, because that what's on the "Olympic Official Map and Guide" put out by the National Park Service. Special thanks to Julie Stofel, who really knows her rain forest flora! The image type that is linked from the thumbnail is the scenic (mono) version. Click on the icons below the thumbnail for the various stereo types: for parallel images, for greyscaled anaglyph images, and for color anaglyph images. A new window will be spawned when a link is clicked. For more information on image types used, click here.

On the Way to the Park
	The road to the Olympic National Park has some pretty areas too. This is looking west into Lake Crescent, west of Port Angeles. It's just a few miles from the park entrance.		I just thought the mist in the mountains here was pretty. The building is the spa at the hot springs in the park.
Along the Trail to the Falls
	Looking through the mid-section of the forest, we don't see many branches. Life is mostly in either the canopy or the underbrush.		A rare breach in the forest provides a glimpse of the sky and neighboring trees, and even a hint of what the weather is like. Fortunately, it wasn't raining this day.
	Looking up, we can only see branches and moss, but from what I hear and see from biologist friends and nature TV shows, life in the canopy is teeming with critters unique to the zone.		Looking straight up and zooming to get a better look at the moss-covered branches. It was fasciating to be able to watch droplets of water coming down from the branches. The dark background made it possible to acquire them several seconds up.
	One more shot of branches with moss, more at eye level. It seemed the mosses preferred areas that were better lit.		More of the mid section of the forest. New growth comes up in this relatively clear area. The forest ranger tells up no trees in the park are older than 400 years, because a peninsula-wide fire consumed everything that long ago.
	A creek comes down the hill towards us. The rocks make me believe it could flow much more heavily at times.		A shot looking downstream from under a young tree. The air was still enough that the branches didn't move (much). It was very quiet, with just the creek making a sound. For you parallel viewers, here are detail shots of the left and right halves.
	Same creek, again looking downstream.		An interesting rock. It had some totally bald patches (bright), mossy patches, and dark areas that seemed "normal". I have no idea yet why. For scale, the big tree trunk there is about 4ft (1.3m) in diameter.
	Here's a view of some of the underbrush. The broad-leafed plant is devil's club, and the the ferns are sword ferns.		This four-leafed dogwood is a bunchberry, and it was ubiquitous on the forest floor. I really like the lighting on this one, filtered through layers of leaves, it's all natural, no flash.
	My wife spotted this pretty grouping of mushrooms growing out of a rotting tree stump.		A closeup of selaginella, the club moss that covers most of the forest floor. Looks like miniature cedars to me, and parallel viewers can click here for a more detailed view. The leafy stuff is lobaria, a lichen. It was occasionally scattered about, having fallen from the trees.
	On the topic of moss-covered, here's a tree stump, about 8 feet tall. It looks like a whole ecosystem unto itself.		Tree stumps. at least one was obviously cut, cleared to make way for the path. The big tree in back is about 5 feet (1.5m) in diameter.
	There places that were very, very dark. Here's one, for example.		Here's another very dark spot, filled with dead trunks. Parallel viewers can click here for a more detailed view.
	If a tree falls, the stump may still live. This one did, and a new tree is sprouting out from the old. It's much more obvious in the 3D views.		At this point, we're almost within sight of the falls. We've been hearing them for the past 5 or 10 minutes. We're looking across the Soleduck River, the first time we get to see it.
At the falls on the Soleduck River
	Here is the money shot of the falls. It's a very famous view, taken from the bridge built over the river canyon. Alas, a single camera taking two shots does a lousy job of stereo imaging for a flowing river.		This is looking upstream from the falls from the same viewpoint as the falls pictures, but zoomed in.
	Looking downstream from the bridge. For your reference, the logs seen here crossing the view also appear in the image of the bridge, below.		Same stretch of canyon as the previous picture, but taken with a little zoom.
	Here's a shot of the bridge over the gorge. The plants on the wall at left were blown around by the wind from the falls.		Some worn rocks on the left bank. Alas, some fools thought their initials were grander than the scene itself, and pretty much ruin a very good photo op.
	Here are the falls as seen from two angles and zooms from the left bank.
	A local chipmunk didn't mind our presence a whole lot, but he wouldn't sit still for two shots.		And the trail went on, deeper into the park. We did not. That's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed the walk, too.