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National Geographic : 1951 Jun
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724 slopes. For comparison, Washington, D. C., in an area of normal rainfall, has an annual precipitation averaging 42 inches. An ideal day to see the rain forests of Miss Shaw's Hoh River Valley, I thought. The newspapers said "light showers." After driving nearly 90 miles through rain, snow, hail, and sleet, interspersed with brilliant sunshine, I concluded that in this particular region one would do well to stay under cover should the weatherman predict showers and not use the qualifying term "light." Seventy miles from Port Angeles I turned left from the highway and started up the Hoh Valley on a narrow dirt road. Eighteen miles beyond, at the road's end in the deep, dark, and wet rain forest of Olympic National Park, I came to a little house where live, like the fabled three bears, ranger Vic Ecklund, his wife Dottie, and young son Vicky. After we drank hot coffee in their cozy kitchen, ranger Vic pulled on his boots, and together we sloshed through the rain another mile to an area of coniferous giants, 8 and 10 feet in diameter at the butt and reaching some 200 feet into the sky. From lofty limbs and along the boles of these monarchs hang festoons of green moss embellished with lacy ferns. Covering the
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