Near Olympic National Park, just off of highway 112, the National Park Service has set up a public viewing station facing what was formerly the Elwha Dam. The platform is equipped with a high magnification spotting scope which one can use to peer into the various accelerated anthro-geologic events happening there. The series of images above was photographed with my phone’s camera clumsily placed on the eyepiece of the scope.
The morning I stood there (last Thursday), I happened to witness a different type of cascading event – one of jute matting unfurling like a stitched-together carpet draped onto a planar mound of earth. This woven plant material, most likely grown and manufactured in India, Bangladesh, China, Myanmar or Thailand, is the final protective layer placed on the sedimentary construction. Just below it is a carefully nurtured assemblage of seeds genetically in keeping with their surroundings.
Too bad they couldn’t leave even a bit of a ruin. Industrial ruins in the wilderness always seem to have a more haunting quality.