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At the edge of the clearing, just around the other side of the pond teeming with singing frogs, a trail leads into the trees. Venturing in, brushing away the fine threads spun across the trail by spiders, you are surrounded by sword ferns, salal, Indian plum and, high above, alder trees sway gently in the breeze. Sunlight filters through the shifting leaves, and to the right of the trail you see a tall tree stump that appears to be wearing a cap of moss. Shortly, the trail leads to a boardwalk, which beckons you into the forest of towering evergreens beyond.
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As you wander down the boardwalk, ducking beneath a fallen tree, the composition of the forest around you begins to change. Less light penetrates through the treetops, and on either side of the boardwalk, a thick carpet of moss covers the ground. The alders are replaced by Douglas fir, western hemlock, western red cedar, and Sitka spruce.
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To the left you see the tall, dark root ball of a blown over tree. Black arms of wood radiate out from its center, and out of the mud, wood, and rock grow ferns and other plants. Beneath this strange sight, skunk cabbages bloom around a pool of water. As you continue strolling down the boardwalk, you can see that around some of the tree trunks, openings in the moss carpet reveal glimpses of water, hinting at the nature of the bog you have entered. |
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You pause to sit for a moment on a bench on the boardwalk, listening to the sounds of the forest. The frogs’ calling, now distant, accompanies the songs of the birds in the forest. Gazing at the landscape for a moment, you now see that amongst the moss on the ground, mushrooms of various shapes and sizes invite closer examination. As you kneel to admire the mini moss and mushroom forest, you catch a glimpse of bright orange witch’s butter blooming out of a piece of wood.
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As you continue down the boardwalk, the light grows dimmer. Here and there in low areas lie pools of water, each colored darker than the last from the tannic acid leached into the groundwater from slowly decomposing peat. Further down the boardwalk, the huge spidery arms of two more rootballs rise up on either side of the trail. The ground rises here and there in verdant mounds of moss, and you can’t help but notice the mosses’ various colors and shapes. Deep holes in the mounds, left by the passage of elk, show that these mounds are not solid.
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A little further along, the moss becomes interspersed with low shrubs; in addition to the salal, now you see bog laurel and Labrador tea. These shrubs become thicker and thicker, until they cover the ground in every direction. The trees thin rapidly, and you blink your eyes in the sudden bright daylight. You have reached the end of the boardwalk.
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From the viewing platform, a little ways off you can see some trees now not commonly seen in the Pacific Northwest, western white pines. Here in this hidden corner King County, the unusual ecological system has enabled these trees to escape the ravages of the blister rust that has all but eliminated this tree from Pacific Northwest forests.
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Beyond the end of the boardwalk, the bog offers many more surprises. Some have been known for centuries to the Native Americans, who visited every year to harvest wild cranberries in the bog. Deep in the bog, an observant visitor would find the round-leaved sundew, a rare carnivorous plant. |
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Visitors to the bog often find new surprises. What will you find?
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