As a small child, I was very curious. Some would say that as an adult I am still curious (but that is a story for a different time). When my family was out hiking, my sister and I often asked, "Can we bring this rock home with us???" My mother soon learned that the best answer was "As long as YOU carry it." Although this was intended to reduce the weight in our packs, it didn't always work and both my sister and I have quite the collection of interesting rocks.
Now that I am an adult, I am slightly more judicious about picking up rocks. I say slightly, because my dresser is heavily adorned with treasures I have picked up in my travels.
The South Fork of the Skokomish River on the Olympic Peninsula is a particularly difficult spot for me. Along the river bar, one can find rocks and minerals of almost every hue. Red, green, purple, yellow, orange, gray and blue. Every step is a magical discovery.
Fortunately for me, I brought my camera with me on a recent hike on the Lower South Fork Skokomish trail. The photo above contains a few of the many interesting rocks I saw... and did not bring home.
The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State is geologically interesting. Although it is close to the Cascade mountain range, it is not volcanic. Plate tectonics are creating the mountains as the Juan de Fuca plate is being pushed eastward underneath North American Plate. The oldest rocks found on the peninsula came from deposits that originated on the ocean floor. These include sandstone, shale and basalt. Sediments from Ice Age glaciation deposits are also prominent on the peninsula. As the Skokomish River flows, it reveals the incredible diversity of the Peninsula's geology.