Friends of Opal Creek - Opal Creek Ecology

Friends of Opal Creek - Opal Creek Ecology

The Opal Creek Wilderness and the neighboring Bull of the Woods Wilderness is the largest contiguous area of low elevation old growth left in Oregon. Opal Creek's ancient rainforest is a remnant of the forests that once blanketed the Pacific Northwest. This forest once stretched from the Pacific coast to the crest of the Cascades from southeast Alaska to the northwest corner of California. The coastal mountains are aligned perpendicular to the prevailing weather patterns, and cause this area to experience unusually heavy rainfall.

Trees and other organisms that are adapted to this unique environment compose a distinctive community that together form the botanical bioregion known as Cascadia. This bioregion has the most diverse moss flora of anywhere in the world. Cascadia includes the world's most massive forests in terms of standing biomass, found on Washington's Olympic peninsula. Paleoecologists figure that the prehistoric rainforests of Oregon's central Cascades were the most massive the world has ever known. At the time of Lewis and Clark, there were Douglas-firs in Oregon that were more massive than the giant Sequoias of California.

The earth's rain forests are biologically diverse and unbelievably complex places that provide humankind with clean air, soil and water, and provide a home to many unique plant and animal species. Myriad species of vascular plants, lichens, fungi, mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles rely on the interrelated web of life that exists here in Opal Creek, and many organisms that are old growth dependent can be found in this relatively undisturbed watershed.