Banana slugs are real! So are flying fish!

I had heard about banana slugs but never thought I would be lucky enough to see one! We took a hike on a trail called the Hall of Mosses in the Hoh Rainforest.


It was quite beautiful.


It was very mossy.





This stuff is called chicken lichen. I suppose because it kind of looks like chicken skin.



Then climbing up a tree, there it was! I think it was kind of dehydrated, though, because it was not too yellow. Still plenty slimey though!



We also visited a fish hatchery where they were raising hundreds of thousands of coho salmon to be released into the nearby river. After going all the way out to the ocean for a few years, they return right back to the fish hatchery to contribute their eggs etc. And so the cycle goes.




These are some models they had in the interpretive center. The salmon are so colorful!



Later on we actually saw fish jumping up the cascades in the river. On their way to spawning grounds.

I only wish I had been quick enough with my camera to get a picture of an actual fish flying through the air trying to go upstream. It was pretty amazing.

Location:Olympic National Park