WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.560 Welcome to today's deep dive. We are incredibly 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:05.440 thrilled to have you with us. Yeah, we've got 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.660 a really phenomenal subject to dig into today. 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.660 We absolutely do. Today we have a very specific 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:13.320 mission and we're drawing all our insights from 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:16.480 a single intensely comprehensive source, which 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:19.480 is the complete historical and geographical breakdown 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:21.780 of the Olympic Mountains. Right. And when you 00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:24.399 start looking at the raw data and the human accounts 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:26.960 compiled about this region, you quickly realize 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:30.109 this isn't just a standard. story about rocks 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:32.409 and trees. No, not at all. Our goal today is 00:00:32.409 --> 00:00:34.570 to basically shortcut your way to being a Pacific 00:00:34.570 --> 00:00:37.670 Northwest geography and history expert. We are 00:00:37.670 --> 00:00:40.829 going to extract the most surprising, mind -bending 00:00:40.829 --> 00:00:44.490 aha moments about how extreme geography creates 00:00:44.490 --> 00:00:47.909 entirely bizarre ecosystems. And how it drives 00:00:47.909 --> 00:00:50.570 some truly wild human history, too. It's really 00:00:50.570 --> 00:00:53.770 a story of absolute extremes and how those extremes 00:00:53.770 --> 00:00:56.270 force everything to adapt or just completely 00:00:56.270 --> 00:00:58.450 fail. Extremes is definitely the perfect word. 00:00:58.509 --> 00:01:00.329 Just to tease some of the wild facts we're going 00:01:00.329 --> 00:01:02.969 to unpack for you today. We are talking about 00:01:02.969 --> 00:01:05.849 a mountain range that was literally scraped off 00:01:05.849 --> 00:01:08.810 the ocean floor. Yep. The geology is wild. And 00:01:08.810 --> 00:01:11.030 we will look at ancient rainforests where the 00:01:11.030 --> 00:01:13.930 undisputed kings of the ecosystem are giant banana 00:01:13.930 --> 00:01:16.890 slugs that actually outweigh all the mammals 00:01:16.890 --> 00:01:19.430 and birds combined. That is still one of my favorite 00:01:19.430 --> 00:01:22.049 stats. It's crazy. And later, we're going to 00:01:22.049 --> 00:01:25.170 recount a disastrous 19th century winter expedition 00:01:25.170 --> 00:01:28.189 that involved dragging a handmade boat through 00:01:28.189 --> 00:01:31.329 25 feet of snow. So to really appreciate how 00:01:31.329 --> 00:01:33.890 all of this chaos happens, we first need to set 00:01:33.890 --> 00:01:35.930 the geographical scene for you. Right. Paint 00:01:35.930 --> 00:01:37.950 the picture. If you picture Washington State 00:01:37.950 --> 00:01:40.510 in the upper left corner of the country, the 00:01:40.510 --> 00:01:43.670 Olympic Mountains sit out on a peninsula. Completely 00:01:43.670 --> 00:01:46.170 surrounded by water on three sides. It's practically 00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:48.870 an island. Basically, yeah. You've got the open 00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:51.349 Pacific Ocean to the west, the Strait of Juan 00:01:51.349 --> 00:01:54.450 de Fuca to the north, and Hood Canal and Puget 00:01:54.450 --> 00:01:56.790 Sound to the east. Now, these mountains aren't 00:01:56.790 --> 00:01:59.650 incredibly high. Mount Olympus tops out at 7 00:01:59.650 --> 00:02:03.370 ,980 feet. Which is tall, but not like the Rockies. 00:02:03.450 --> 00:02:06.290 Exactly. But they rise precipitously, almost 00:02:06.290 --> 00:02:08.580 straight out of the sea. Okay, let's unpack this 00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:10.639 geology right away because it is definitely not 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:12.699 what you might expect from the Pacific Northwest. 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:14.340 Not at all. Like if you look at the neighboring 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:17.199 Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier or Mount St. 00:02:17.300 --> 00:02:20.400 Helens, those are famously volcanic. Right, the 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:23.000 Ring of Fire. But the Olympics. The geological 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.340 records show they are not volcanic at all and 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:28.439 they contain absolutely no native granite. Which 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:31.939 is incredibly rare for a massive mountain range. 00:02:32.139 --> 00:02:33.900 It seems bizarre. So where did they come from? 00:02:34.039 --> 00:02:36.680 Well, instead of granite or volcanoes, they are... 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:39.500 They're primarily made of ancient Eocene sandstones 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:42.340 and basalt. Okay, translate that for us. Sure. 00:02:42.419 --> 00:02:45.599 We're talking about ancient seafloor sand and 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:48.360 heavy volcanic rock that was formed underwater 00:02:48.360 --> 00:02:51.560 tens of millions of years ago. Wow. Yeah, and 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:53.680 to understand how ocean floor became a mountain 00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:56.960 range, we have to go back about 35 million years. 00:02:57.879 --> 00:03:00.740 As the Farallon tectonic plate moved eastward, 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:03.020 it collided with the North American continental 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:05.639 plate. And as it collided, it subducted. Right, 00:03:05.740 --> 00:03:08.000 like it jammed underneath the continent. Exactly. 00:03:08.099 --> 00:03:10.129 It jammed right underneath. This is my favorite 00:03:10.129 --> 00:03:13.009 part of the geology. It's exactly like a tectonic 00:03:13.009 --> 00:03:15.629 snowplow. A snowplow is a great way to look at 00:03:15.629 --> 00:03:18.250 it. Like imagine a massive snowplow pushing down 00:03:18.250 --> 00:03:20.490 a street. Most of the pavement gets cleared, 00:03:20.610 --> 00:03:23.889 but a huge layer of the snow and ice gets scraped 00:03:23.889 --> 00:03:26.550 off the top and jammed into a massive crumpled 00:03:26.550 --> 00:03:29.129 pile in the corner. That is spot on. That's what 00:03:29.129 --> 00:03:31.449 happened to the seafloor. It got jammed into 00:03:31.449 --> 00:03:33.830 a corner between Vancouver Island and the North 00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:37.750 Cascades, literally scraped up into a giant crumpled 00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:40.129 dome. And all of this scraping and crumpling 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:42.650 happened completely underwater. Which is so hard 00:03:42.650 --> 00:03:45.210 to wrap your head around. It really is. The Olympic 00:03:45.210 --> 00:03:47.050 Mountains didn't even rise above the surface 00:03:47.050 --> 00:03:49.409 of the sea until 10 to 20 million years ago. 00:03:49.810 --> 00:03:52.110 What's fascinating here is how this specific 00:03:52.110 --> 00:03:55.810 origin story, this scraped up dome shape, creates 00:03:55.810 --> 00:03:58.250 one of the steepest reliefs globally. Because 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:00.750 it just shoots straight up. Right. Because it's 00:04:00.750 --> 00:04:03.009 a dome sitting right on the coast, it acts as 00:04:03.009 --> 00:04:06.349 a massive, immovable weather wall. Okay, so if 00:04:06.349 --> 00:04:08.610 this dome is acting as a massive weather wall 00:04:08.610 --> 00:04:10.650 right on the coast, intercepting all those Pacific 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:13.210 storms, what does that actually look like in 00:04:13.210 --> 00:04:15.849 terms of rainfall? It's intense. Are we talking 00:04:15.849 --> 00:04:19.410 a heavy Seattle drizzle or something more extreme? 00:04:19.589 --> 00:04:22.529 Oh, it is vastly more extreme than Seattle. Because 00:04:22.529 --> 00:04:24.569 they are only about 35 miles from the ocean, 00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:27.430 they catch essentially all the incoming Pacific 00:04:27.430 --> 00:04:29.949 moisture. All of it. Yeah, Mount Olympus itself 00:04:29.949 --> 00:04:33.189 gets pounded with an estimated 240 inches of 00:04:33.189 --> 00:04:35.970 rain and snow every single year. Let's just ground 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:38.810 that number for you for a second. 240 inches 00:04:38.810 --> 00:04:41.910 is 20 feet of water. It's massive. Imagine a 00:04:41.910 --> 00:04:45.129 two -story house completely submerged in precipitation. 00:04:45.389 --> 00:04:48.230 That is what falls on Mount Olympian every single 00:04:48.230 --> 00:04:51.069 year. And the western slopes, like the Horaine 00:04:51.069 --> 00:04:54.699 Forest, get up to 170 inches annually. That actually 00:04:54.699 --> 00:04:56.420 makes it the wettest place in the contiguous 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:58.519 United States. But wait, if the mountains are 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:01.480 just scraped up seafloor dirt and rock, how do 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:03.620 they support anything, let alone massive old 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:05.800 -growth forests? Wouldn't the soil be terrible? 00:05:06.100 --> 00:05:08.100 That is a great question. Initially, yes, it 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:11.519 was. But over millions of years, that staggering 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:14.160 volume of water mechanically breaks down the 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:17.620 rock. Exactly. Add in pioneer species like lichens 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:20.759 and mosses that thrive in the wet, and over millennia, 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:24.540 you build up incredibly rich, deep soil. But 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:26.240 here's the crazy part about that weather wall. 00:05:26.379 --> 00:05:29.399 The rain shadow? Yes. Because the mountains are 00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:31.860 a dome, they cast a massive rain shadow on the 00:05:31.860 --> 00:05:34.920 other side. Just a few miles away, to the northeast, 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:38.160 the city of Sequim gets a mere 16 inches of rain 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:41.389 a year. That is wild to me. You have temperate 00:05:41.389 --> 00:05:44.089 rainforests dripping with moss on one side and 00:05:44.089 --> 00:05:46.509 an area so dry it literally requires irrigation 00:05:46.509 --> 00:05:49.069 on the other. It's a land of total contrast. 00:05:49.389 --> 00:05:51.029 And that level of moisture doesn't just shape 00:05:51.029 --> 00:05:53.769 the rocks. It completely dictates the flora and 00:05:53.769 --> 00:05:56.089 fauna that can survive there. Which brings us 00:05:56.089 --> 00:05:58.829 to a really bizarre ecological monopoly in these 00:05:58.829 --> 00:06:01.430 forests. The conifers. Right. The hardwood to 00:06:01.430 --> 00:06:04.329 conifer timber volume is 1 to 1 ,000. It is almost 00:06:04.329 --> 00:06:07.230 entirely evergreen trees. Syctus, Bruce, western 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:09.430 hemlock, Douglas fir. Why is there absolutely 00:06:09.430 --> 00:06:11.610 no balance? If we connect this to the bigger 00:06:11.610 --> 00:06:14.629 picture, the dominance of conifers over deciduous 00:06:14.629 --> 00:06:17.069 trees, the ones with broad leaves, is a direct 00:06:17.069 --> 00:06:19.490 result of the timing of the precipitation. The 00:06:19.490 --> 00:06:22.139 wet winter. Right. The area has incredibly wet 00:06:22.139 --> 00:06:24.939 winters and very dry summers. Deciduous trees 00:06:24.939 --> 00:06:27.240 can't grow much during the dry summer and they 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:29.100 drop their leaves in the fall so they completely 00:06:29.100 --> 00:06:31.220 miss out on the winter rains. Oh, that makes 00:06:31.220 --> 00:06:34.420 sense. But conifers, the evergreens, keep their 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:36.879 needles and can photosynthesize right through 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:39.800 the fall, winter, and early spring. And because 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:42.480 the Pacific Northwest doesn't get frequent tropical 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:45.420 cyclones or hurricanes to knock them down, these 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:48.120 trees just sit there and keep growing for centuries. 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:51.350 They get massive. Every coniferous genus represented 00:06:51.350 --> 00:06:54.089 in the Olympics features its largest and longest 00:06:54.089 --> 00:06:57.189 -lived species. They are absolute giants. But 00:06:57.189 --> 00:06:58.990 when you walk through these rainforests, like 00:06:58.990 --> 00:07:02.350 the Ho or the Quinau, the forest floor is surprisingly 00:07:02.350 --> 00:07:05.029 open. Yeah, it's not what you'd expect from a 00:07:05.029 --> 00:07:06.750 rainforest. It's almost like a manicured park. 00:07:06.930 --> 00:07:09.610 It's not a dense, impenetrable jungle. And that 00:07:09.610 --> 00:07:12.910 open structure isn't entirely natural. Or rather, 00:07:13.110 --> 00:07:16.050 it isn't just the climate doing the work. The 00:07:16.050 --> 00:07:19.250 real ecosystem engineers of the Olympic rainforests 00:07:19.250 --> 00:07:22.310 are the Roosevelt elk. I love this part. Olympic 00:07:22.310 --> 00:07:25.009 National Park actually protects the largest population 00:07:25.009 --> 00:07:27.250 of Roosevelt elk in the world. So they are basically 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:30.129 thousand -pound landscapers. Precisely. They 00:07:30.129 --> 00:07:32.470 graze heavily on the hemlock saplings and the 00:07:32.470 --> 00:07:35.389 dense understory shrubs, but they leave the Sitka 00:07:35.389 --> 00:07:38.050 spruce alone. So they are literally weeding the 00:07:38.050 --> 00:07:41.069 forest. Exactly. Without the elk constantly browsing 00:07:41.069 --> 00:07:43.670 and clearing the brush, the forest floor would 00:07:43.670 --> 00:07:47.069 become an... impenetrable tangle but the historical 00:07:47.069 --> 00:07:49.550 relationship between humans and these elk is 00:07:49.550 --> 00:07:52.589 fascinating and often incredibly tragic very 00:07:52.589 --> 00:07:55.589 tragic by the early 20th century commercial hunters 00:07:55.589 --> 00:07:58.089 had decimated the herds bringing the population 00:07:58.089 --> 00:08:01.980 down to fewer than 2 ,000 animals which is Terrifyingly 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:04.740 low for a keystone species. Right. And this crisis 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:06.980 actually prompted Theodore Roosevelt to create 00:08:06.980 --> 00:08:10.500 the Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909 specifically 00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:13.019 to protect them. And the herds did rebound from 00:08:13.019 --> 00:08:14.959 there. Which sounds like a great conservation 00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:17.019 success story. But then I was reading about what 00:08:17.019 --> 00:08:19.319 happened next when the authorities decided to 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:22.399 manage this booming population in 1937. Oh, the 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:25.300 1937 hunt. They opened up a hunting season in 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:27.639 the Ho River Valley and it was a total disaster, 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:30.730 right? It was a logistical nightmare. of epic 00:08:30.730 --> 00:08:34.250 proportions. The authorities severely underestimated 00:08:34.250 --> 00:08:36.190 the public response. How many people showed up? 00:08:36.330 --> 00:08:39.409 An estimated 2 ,000 to 4 ,000 hunters descended 00:08:39.409 --> 00:08:42.509 on a completely wild area with no infrastructure 00:08:42.509 --> 00:08:46.049 to support them. Into a rainforest. Yes. And 00:08:46.049 --> 00:08:48.850 then the extreme weather turned on them. The 00:08:48.850 --> 00:08:51.429 details from the source are just shocking. The 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:54.570 Ho River flooded, completely washing away massive 00:08:54.570 --> 00:08:57.730 hunting camps. People were hopelessly lost in 00:08:57.730 --> 00:09:00.850 the deep woods. It was pure chaos. One hunter 00:09:00.850 --> 00:09:02.809 was accidentally shot to death by another. Another 00:09:02.809 --> 00:09:04.990 hunter drowned in the freezing river. A pack 00:09:04.990 --> 00:09:07.990 horse was even shot by mistake. Just a mess. 00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:10.769 Forest Service personnel literally had to abandon 00:09:10.769 --> 00:09:13.590 their posts just to run emergency rescue operations 00:09:13.590 --> 00:09:16.129 for the hunters. And by the end of it... Over 00:09:16.129 --> 00:09:18.950 800 elk were killed with some just left lying 00:09:18.950 --> 00:09:21.350 rotting in the forest because it was too chaotic 00:09:21.350 --> 00:09:23.690 to pack the meat out. It's awful. It's pure chaos, 00:09:23.830 --> 00:09:26.289 yeah. But historically, it was a crucial turning 00:09:26.289 --> 00:09:28.929 point. How so? Proponents of creating a permanent 00:09:28.929 --> 00:09:31.649 national park used the sheer disaster of that 00:09:31.649 --> 00:09:35.269 1937 hunt as their primary argument for why the 00:09:35.269 --> 00:09:37.750 area needed strict federal protection from hunting 00:09:37.750 --> 00:09:40.769 and logging. Okay, so the elk are the heavy -duty 00:09:40.769 --> 00:09:43.889 landscapers, but they aren't the undisputed kings 00:09:43.889 --> 00:09:46.429 of this forest in terms of sheer mass, right? 00:09:46.570 --> 00:09:49.169 Not even close. I want to talk about the real 00:09:49.169 --> 00:09:51.779 rulers of the damp shade. You're talking about 00:09:51.779 --> 00:09:55.159 the banana slug? Yes. This completely blew my 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:58.039 mind. They thrive so incredibly well in this 00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:01.340 damp, cool environment that if you were to gather 00:10:01.340 --> 00:10:03.899 them all up and put them on a scale, their combined 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:06.500 mass outweighs all the mammals and all the birds 00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:08.980 in the Olympic forests combined. It really is 00:10:08.980 --> 00:10:11.200 a staggering insight into how extreme ecosystems 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:14.820 function. It completely flips our traditional 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:17.220 understanding of the biomass hierarchy on its 00:10:17.220 --> 00:10:19.519 head. Because usually you think of bears or elk. 00:10:19.580 --> 00:10:21.700 Right. In most places, you think of large mammals 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.559 or apex predators dominating the landscape. But 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:26.500 in an ecosystem thoroughly soaked in moisture, 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:29.120 it favors organisms that would dry out and die 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:31.179 almost anywhere else. That makes total sense. 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:34.100 The true kings of the Olympic rainforest are 00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:37.659 the detritivores, the slugs, quietly recycling 00:10:37.659 --> 00:10:40.220 the forest floor. Here's where it gets really 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:42.799 interesting, though. We've talked about how extreme 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.500 the landscape is, the weather walls, the giant 00:10:45.500 --> 00:10:48.779 trees, the endless rain. So how did humans actually 00:10:48.779 --> 00:10:50.980 navigate it? For a long time, they just didn't. 00:10:51.019 --> 00:10:53.240 Right. The short answer for European settlers 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:56.059 was they didn't. But the indigenous peoples of 00:10:56.059 --> 00:10:58.519 the peninsula had a completely different relationship 00:10:58.519 --> 00:11:01.039 with this land, didn't they? A profoundly deep 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:05.320 relationship. Tribes like the Skokomish. Quinault 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:08.580 and Elwha Clallam navigated and utilized this 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:12.120 extreme landscape for over 7 ,000 years. That's 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:14.419 older than the pyramids. It is. Archaeologists 00:11:14.419 --> 00:11:16.679 have found stone tools and intricately woven 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:19.960 baskets high up in the subalpine meadows. They 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.200 had specific well -worn trails they used for 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:24.419 hunting, trading across the mountain passes, 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:27.360 and undertaking spirit quests. Which proves it 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:29.580 wasn't impossible to navigate if you respected 00:11:29.580 --> 00:11:31.820 the rhythms of the environment. I even read that 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:34.539 their oral history specifically described the 00:11:34.539 --> 00:11:37.580 highest peaks of the Olympics as the only refuges 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:39.720 during the great floods at the beginning of time. 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.879 They knew this land intimately. They understood 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:45.879 how to exist within the extremes. But when European 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:48.620 settlers arrived much later, they looked at this 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:52.379 tangled, wet, mountainous interior and found 00:11:52.379 --> 00:11:55.279 it virtually impenetrable. It was basically a 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:58.120 terrifying black spot on their maps. It wasn't 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.440 until 1889 that a group of settlers managed to 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:03.759 cross the interior. And the story of that crossing 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:06.360 is just... Wild. The infamous press expedition. 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:08.799 Oh, yes. Sponsored by a Seattle newspaper called 00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:11.159 The Press. It was led by a Canadian named James 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:14.299 H. Christie. He took five men, four dogs, and 00:12:14.299 --> 00:12:16.539 two mules. And for some unfathomable reason, 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:18.419 they decided to cross these mountains in the 00:12:18.419 --> 00:12:20.960 dead of winter. Why winter? Makes no sense. Pure 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:24.600 ego and glory. They wanted to beat a formal military 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:26.919 expedition that was planned for the summer of 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.860 1890. So they just rushed it. Yeah, but attempting 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:31.759 this in winter in a place that gets 20 feet of 00:12:31.759 --> 00:12:34.600 precipitation, it quickly devolved into a comedy 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:37.759 of errors and sheer, unbelievable endurance. 00:12:38.179 --> 00:12:40.840 I can only imagine. Their very first mistake 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:43.919 was attempting to navigate the freezing Elwha 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.899 River by boat. Right. They built a heavy wooden 00:12:46.899 --> 00:12:49.460 boat from scratch to tow their cargo upriver. 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:52.529 But the water was freezing. and deep snow covered 00:12:52.529 --> 00:12:55.070 all the boulders and fallen trees along the banks. 00:12:55.269 --> 00:12:57.429 So they were basically dragging it. They spent 00:12:57.429 --> 00:13:00.850 two weeks of agonizing, back -breaking labor 00:13:00.850 --> 00:13:03.470 pulling this boat through the ice and rapids. 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:06.809 And in those two weeks... They had only advanced 00:13:06.809 --> 00:13:09.669 four miles. Four miles? You could literally crawl 00:13:09.669 --> 00:13:11.970 faster than that. Why on earth didn't they just 00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:14.450 turn around? Extreme stubbornness. They finally 00:13:14.450 --> 00:13:17.110 abandoned the boat, but their two mules didn't 00:13:17.110 --> 00:13:20.230 fare much better. Mules in 25 feet of snow sounds 00:13:20.230 --> 00:13:22.990 like a bad idea. Deep snow and steep ravines 00:13:22.990 --> 00:13:25.649 are not meant for pack animals, and both mules 00:13:25.649 --> 00:13:28.110 died in separate incidents relatively early on. 00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:30.389 So these men had to carry everything on their 00:13:30.389 --> 00:13:33.190 backs. And they packed super light on food, right? 00:13:33.429 --> 00:13:36.389 Remember, they brought very minimal food. because 00:13:36.389 --> 00:13:38.350 they assumed they'd just hunt game along the 00:13:38.350 --> 00:13:40.350 way. Which would have worked in the lowlands. 00:13:40.549 --> 00:13:43.169 But the heavy winter snows had driven all the 00:13:43.169 --> 00:13:46.370 elk and deer down out of the high country. So 00:13:46.370 --> 00:13:48.490 they were carrying heavy packs with nothing to 00:13:48.490 --> 00:13:51.110 eat. For long stretches in the deep mountains, 00:13:51.289 --> 00:13:54.610 they had absolutely no meat. They survived for 00:13:54.610 --> 00:13:57.409 weeks on what they desperately called flour soup. 00:13:57.669 --> 00:14:00.639 Just the name is depressing. Literally just flour 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.100 and water boiled together, and occasionally a 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:05.740 few beans. At one point, Christy climbed a peak 00:14:05.740 --> 00:14:08.559 to scout their route, and he estimated the snow 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:11.500 was 25 feet deep. They were dealing with daily 00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:14.259 avalanches. How did they even get over the passes? 00:14:14.620 --> 00:14:16.759 To cross the massive divide between the river 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:20.500 systems, they hit a sheer vertical cliff. Christy 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:23.120 literally had to free climb up to a ledge, lower 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:25.679 a rope, and then they hauled the men, the heavy 00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:27.659 packs, and their dogs up the vertical cliff. 00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:30.740 Face by hand. Just incredible desperation. Truly. 00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:32.919 They finally made it over the divide, managed 00:14:32.919 --> 00:14:35.179 to shoot a bear, which saved them from outright 00:14:35.179 --> 00:14:37.960 starvation, and reached the main stem Quinault 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:40.759 River. Foam stretch. They thought the worst was 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:42.960 over, so they built a raft to float down to the 00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:45.919 coast. And what happens? They promptly crashed 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:49.000 the raft into a massive log jam. Unbelievable. 00:14:49.019 --> 00:14:51.779 Just wrecked it. They saved the dogs, and they 00:14:51.779 --> 00:14:55.000 saved exactly one pack that had their maps and 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.809 photos in it. But they lost everything else. 00:14:57.909 --> 00:15:00.490 All their food, their guns, their shelter. And 00:15:00.490 --> 00:15:02.909 all their hard -won scientific specimens at the 00:15:02.909 --> 00:15:05.350 bottom of the river. They had to walk down the 00:15:05.350 --> 00:15:07.429 riverbank, eating nothing but salmonberry shoots 00:15:07.429 --> 00:15:10.289 and spruce bark, until a settler and a Quinault 00:15:10.289 --> 00:15:13.110 indigenous guide found them and rescued them 00:15:13.110 --> 00:15:15.940 in a canoe. It took them nearly six months to 00:15:15.940 --> 00:15:18.700 cross the peninsula. Six months of pure misery. 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:20.919 You'd think the military expedition that went 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:23.620 the following summer, led by Lieutenant Joseph 00:15:23.620 --> 00:15:25.740 O 'Neill, would have had an easier time. Because 00:15:25.740 --> 00:15:28.539 it was summer. Exactly. But the summer brought 00:15:28.539 --> 00:15:32.240 its own unique miseries. O 'Neill's men spent 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:35.220 their days hacking through incredibly dense brush. 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:38.700 And the bugs. Oh, the bugs. They were attacked 00:15:38.700 --> 00:15:41.179 by swarms of hornets and yellow jackets daily, 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:44.370 which caused their mules to stampede. One even 00:15:44.370 --> 00:15:46.809 fell off a cliff to its death. That terrain is 00:15:46.809 --> 00:15:50.090 just unforgiving. The men waded through swamps 00:15:50.090 --> 00:15:53.090 where they were impaled by toxic devil's club 00:15:53.090 --> 00:15:56.470 thorns that broke off under their skin and festered. 00:15:56.470 --> 00:15:59.649 So you either freeze in 25 feet of snow and eat 00:15:59.649 --> 00:16:02.750 flower soup, or you get impaled by thorns while 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:05.789 fighting off hornets. Pick your poison. It feels 00:16:05.789 --> 00:16:07.429 like whenever people who didn't understand this 00:16:07.429 --> 00:16:09.710 landscape tried to foist their will on it, the 00:16:09.710 --> 00:16:12.539 landscape fought back. It definitely did. But 00:16:12.539 --> 00:16:15.759 humans did manage to do some real lasting damage 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:19.620 eventually, didn't we? Unfortunately, yes. This 00:16:19.620 --> 00:16:21.700 raises an important question about the ecology 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:24.320 here. How sensitive it is. Right. Because this 00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:27.620 ecosystem is essentially an island on land, surrounded 00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:31.000 by water on three sides, and cut off by its sheer 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:34.000 ruggedness, it is highly sensitive to disruption. 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:36.879 Because things can't just easily migrate in and 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:39.519 out. Exactly. And human intervention over the 00:16:39.519 --> 00:16:42.179 last century has repeatedly thrown this delicate 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.759 balance into chaos. For instance, by 1920, the 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.240 gray wolf had been trapped entirely out of existence 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.480 in the Olympics. And when you remove the apex 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:53.070 predator, the whole system shifts. Without wolves, 00:16:53.330 --> 00:16:56.149 coyotes, which historically only lived down in 00:16:56.149 --> 00:16:59.149 the lowlands, began moving up into the high alpine 00:16:59.149 --> 00:17:01.850 elevations. That sounds like a bad shift. It 00:17:01.850 --> 00:17:05.109 was. This unnatural migration is believed to 00:17:05.109 --> 00:17:08.289 be the primary cause of population declines in 00:17:08.289 --> 00:17:10.829 the Olympic marmot, a creature that exists nowhere 00:17:10.829 --> 00:17:13.250 else on Earth. And then there is the story of 00:17:13.250 --> 00:17:15.410 the mountain goats. I was stunned to learn that 00:17:15.410 --> 00:17:17.349 mountain goats are not actually native to the 00:17:17.349 --> 00:17:20.089 Olympic Mountains. They look so natural up there, 00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:22.180 but they aren't. They were introduced in the 00:17:22.180 --> 00:17:25.259 1920s by a coalition of the Forest Service and 00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:27.519 the Game Commission purely so people could hunt 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:29.940 them. A classic case of unintended consequences. 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:32.539 Totally. The goats thrived in the rocky terrain, 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:35.380 but their hooves and grazing habits tore up the 00:17:35.380 --> 00:17:38.319 fragile alpine vegetation and caused severe soil 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:41.579 erosion. And they got dangerous. Very. They lost 00:17:41.579 --> 00:17:43.859 their natural fear of humans and became hyper 00:17:43.859 --> 00:17:45.940 -aggressive toward hikers. Tragically aggressive. 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:50.519 In 1999, a goat gored a hiker, and in 2010, a... 00:17:50.509 --> 00:17:52.970 a mountain goat actually fatally gored a hiker 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:56.210 on a park trail. It's awful. The problem got 00:17:56.210 --> 00:17:59.569 so entirely out of hand that by 2018, the National 00:17:59.569 --> 00:18:02.289 Park Service had to launch a massive operation 00:18:02.289 --> 00:18:05.589 to literally airlift the goats out of the mountains. 00:18:05.829 --> 00:18:08.650 Imagine being the pilot airlifting hundreds of 00:18:08.650 --> 00:18:10.890 angry mountain goats out of a national park by 00:18:10.890 --> 00:18:13.710 helicopter to relocate them to the Cascades. 00:18:13.710 --> 00:18:16.049 It is an absurd image, but it highlights the 00:18:16.049 --> 00:18:18.900 cost of meddling. It really does. We see a similar, 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:22.099 deeply impactful story with the rivers. The Elwha 00:18:22.099 --> 00:18:24.380 River is one of the major waterways flowing out 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:26.480 of the mountains, acting like a spoke on a wheel. 00:18:26.619 --> 00:18:29.539 And people decided to dam it. In 1910, and again 00:18:29.539 --> 00:18:32.480 in 1927, massive concrete dams were built on 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.900 the Elwha to generate electricity for local industries. 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.480 But they were built with zero fish passage. Let's 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:40.460 dig into that for a second. Blocking that much 00:18:40.460 --> 00:18:42.980 river in a place completely defined by its waterways, 00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:45.220 that's catastrophic for the forest. Completely 00:18:45.220 --> 00:18:47.460 catastrophic. Because salmon don't just stay 00:18:47.460 --> 00:18:50.079 in the water. They are a massive nutrient delivery 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:53.700 system for the entire ecosystem. Precisely. Suddenly, 00:18:53.779 --> 00:18:56.240 incredible runs of Pacific salmon were entirely 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.039 blocked from over 70 miles of their natural spawning 00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:02.880 grounds. 70 miles of river just cut off. It devastated 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:05.869 the local fisheries. deeply harmed the indigenous 00:19:05.869 --> 00:19:08.250 tribes who relied on them culturally and for 00:19:08.250 --> 00:19:10.950 sustenance, and starved the forest of the marine 00:19:10.950 --> 00:19:14.029 nutrients the salmon normally bring inland. But 00:19:14.029 --> 00:19:16.390 they did eventually fix it. It took a full century 00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:18.589 of fighting before the government finally began 00:19:18.589 --> 00:19:20.890 the massive project of tearing those dams down 00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:24.009 in 2011. And removing a dam isn't just blowing 00:19:24.009 --> 00:19:28.069 up concrete. Oh no. It's carefully managing millions 00:19:28.069 --> 00:19:31.930 of tons of trapped sediment. to restore the river's 00:19:31.930 --> 00:19:34.670 natural flow. It seems like for decades it was 00:19:34.670 --> 00:19:37.789 just a cycle of chaos. Unregulated timber grabs, 00:19:38.109 --> 00:19:40.730 trapping out the wolves, disastrous hunting seasons, 00:19:40.869 --> 00:19:43.230 blocking the rivers. Just constant pressure on 00:19:43.230 --> 00:19:46.190 the ecosystem. But all of this ecological damage 00:19:46.190 --> 00:19:49.029 did eventually trigger a massive public outcry. 00:19:49.170 --> 00:19:51.609 And that led to President Franklin D. Roosevelt 00:19:51.609 --> 00:19:54.329 actually traveling out to the peninsula in 1937 00:19:54.329 --> 00:19:56.869 to see it for himself. It was a highly contentious 00:19:56.869 --> 00:19:59.009 political visit. The logging industry was fighting 00:19:59.009 --> 00:20:02.299 it, right? Hard. You had the Forest Service lobbying 00:20:02.299 --> 00:20:05.220 hard to keep the land open for lucrative logging 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:08.259 and hunting, while the Park Service and conservationists 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:10.680 desperately wanted to protect it. But when FDR 00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:13.619 arrived in Port Angeles, he was greeted by more 00:20:13.619 --> 00:20:16.660 than 3 ,000 local schoolchildren, holding signs 00:20:16.660 --> 00:20:19.059 and begging him to give us our Olympic National 00:20:19.059 --> 00:20:22.279 Park. And it worked. The next year, in 1938, 00:20:22.619 --> 00:20:25.660 he signed Olympic National Park into law, permanently 00:20:25.660 --> 00:20:28.099 protecting the high country and those ancient 00:20:28.099 --> 00:20:30.740 rainforests. And over the years, the park was 00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:33.160 expanded to include the wild coastal strips, 00:20:33.339 --> 00:20:36.240 eventually becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:39.059 Which is an incredible designation. It really 00:20:39.059 --> 00:20:41.380 is. It stands today as one of the largest continuous 00:20:41.380 --> 00:20:44.240 blocks of untouched old growth forest left in 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:46.880 the country. So what does this all mean for you 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:48.920 today? When you take a step back from all these 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:51.000 incredible details we've unpacked, the Olympic 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.799 Mountains are really a masterclass in extreme 00:20:53.799 --> 00:20:56.299 interconnectedness. Everything relies on everything 00:20:56.299 --> 00:20:59.890 else. Exactly. You have tectonic plates scraping 00:20:59.890 --> 00:21:02.950 the seafloor into a crumpled pile. That specific 00:21:02.950 --> 00:21:06.309 dome shape creates a massive rain wall. That 00:21:06.309 --> 00:21:09.630 endless rain grows towering ancient trees. The 00:21:09.630 --> 00:21:12.049 trees feed the massive elk. The elk shape the 00:21:12.049 --> 00:21:14.630 structure of the forest. And the slugs recycle 00:21:14.630 --> 00:21:17.380 it all. And whenever humans have tried to outsmart 00:21:17.380 --> 00:21:19.660 or conquer this landscape, whether it's dragging 00:21:19.660 --> 00:21:21.759 a boat through winter ice or dropping mountain 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:24.619 goats onto the peaks, it usually ends in wrecked 00:21:24.619 --> 00:21:27.359 rafts and emergency helicopter airlifts. The 00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:30.240 mountain always wins. It is a landscape that 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:32.740 insists on operating entirely by its own rules. 00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:35.700 Yeah. But there is a final forward -looking piece 00:21:35.700 --> 00:21:38.259 of data from the geological records that really 00:21:38.259 --> 00:21:40.400 refrains everything we've talked about. Oh, about 00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:43.240 the glaciers. Yeah. We mentioned that the extreme 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:45.759 precipitation and cool climate allow glaciers 00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:48.579 to exist at surprisingly low elevations here. 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:51.660 Right. There are about 184 glaciers and permanent 00:21:51.660 --> 00:21:54.519 ice fields crowning these peaks. They are the 00:21:54.519 --> 00:21:56.740 icy engines that carve the U -shaped valleys 00:21:56.740 --> 00:21:59.420 and feed that radial network of rivers we discussed. 00:21:59.799 --> 00:22:01.680 Right. They're the source of the cold water that 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:04.619 keeps the whole system moving. Exactly. But due 00:22:04.619 --> 00:22:07.420 to warming global temperatures, these glaciers 00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:09.859 are experiencing significant rapid decreases 00:22:09.859 --> 00:22:13.079 in mass. Several have already disappeared completely. 00:22:13.420 --> 00:22:15.420 And the current projections indicate that the 00:22:15.420 --> 00:22:17.920 glaciers in the Olympics are expected to largely 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:21.839 vanish by the year 2070. Wow. It leaves you with 00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:24.259 a really haunting thought. It really does. We've 00:22:24.259 --> 00:22:26.220 spent this whole time talking about how the Olympic 00:22:26.220 --> 00:22:29.180 Mountains are an unstoppable, immovable force 00:22:29.180 --> 00:22:32.220 of nature. But when you look at the data on those 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:36.099 184 glaciers melting, you realize this immovable 00:22:36.099 --> 00:22:38.579 landscape is actually operating on a ticking 00:22:38.579 --> 00:22:41.259 clock. A very fast clock, relatively speaking. 00:22:41.420 --> 00:22:44.859 If those glaciers vanish entirely by 2070, what 00:22:44.859 --> 00:22:46.960 happens to the rivers that depend on that slow 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:49.809 release of cold meltwater? And the salmon. Exactly. 00:22:49.890 --> 00:22:51.809 What happens to the salmon that need those freezing 00:22:51.809 --> 00:22:54.430 rivers to spawn and the ancient giant trees that 00:22:54.430 --> 00:22:57.289 rely on that moisture cycle? When the icy beating 00:22:57.289 --> 00:22:59.990 heart of the Olympic Mountains stops, the entire 00:22:59.990 --> 00:23:02.490 identity of this isolated peninsula will be forced 00:23:02.490 --> 00:23:05.430 to change. It is a stark reminder of how fragile 00:23:05.430 --> 00:23:08.769 even the most extreme and seemingly unconquerable 00:23:08.769 --> 00:23:11.049 environments truly are. The connections are so 00:23:11.049 --> 00:23:13.369 tight that pulling on one thread could unravel 00:23:13.369 --> 00:23:16.470 the whole tapestry. That is a profound and sobering 00:23:16.470 --> 00:23:18.430 thought to leave on. Thank you for joining us 00:23:18.430 --> 00:23:20.809 on... this deep dive into the wild, wet, and 00:23:20.809 --> 00:23:23.650 endlessly fascinating Olympic Mountains. We hope 00:23:23.650 --> 00:23:26.150 you walk away with a few new aha moments to share. 00:23:26.349 --> 00:23:28.809 Until next time, keep questioning the world around 00:23:28.809 --> 00:23:29.089 you.