Olympic National Park, Washington, USA
here are stunning temperate rainforests in the west of the Olympic National Park, especially around Quinault and Hoh, where you will find trails with giant Sitka spruce and red cedar so thickly draped in moss and epiphytes that the effect is positively prehistoric. The park also has excellent displays of wildflowers above the treeline, starting at around 1,300m. According to the renowned American plantsman and plant collector Dan Hinkley, the road that leads to Hurricane Ridge, in the northern Olympics, is the only place in the park where you can drive on a paved road from sea level to alpine meadow, through wildflower displays that vary from year to year depending on the amount of snow that falls. “Great drifts of our native (pictured) can be seen in meadows nearing the top,” he says. “On scree slopes soon after snow melt, the squat but intensely blue Olympic or rockslide larkspur, , is common, while in wet seeps, both , the white marsh margiold, and subsp. blossom concurrently. On, flowers in July, resulting soon after in extremely large silky seedheads.” Mount Rainier, in the Cascade Mountains, is also well worth visiting. The visitor centres at Paradise Meadows and Sunrise are informative and make a good base from which to explore. Find out more at
