According to Native American lore, Multnomah Falls was created to win the heart of a young princess who wanted a hidden place to bathe. The waterfall is located in the Columbia River Gorge, east of Troutdale, between Corbett and Dodson, Oregon, United States. The waterfall is accessible from the Historic Columbia River Highway and Interstate 84. Spanning two tiers on basalt cliffs, it is the tallest waterfall in the state of Oregon at 620 ft in height. The land surrounding the falls was developed by Simon Benson in the early-twentieth century, with a pathway, viewing bridge, and adjacent lodge being constructed in 1925. The Multnomah Falls Lodge and the surrounding footpaths at the falls were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Contemporarily, the state of Oregon maintains a switchback trail that ascends to a talus slope 100 feet above the falls, and descends to an observation deck that overlooks the falls' edge. The falls attract over two million visitors each year, making it the most-visited natural recreation site in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
Everybody knows about the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rain forest. However there are several lesser-known temperate rain forests, such as the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. The Hoh Rain Forest is characterized by extremely high densities of of plants and other vegetation. Per unit area the rain forest is most productive place on earth--the biomass in these forest is 500 tons/acre, while the tropical rain forest supports a biomass of 300 tons/acre. Additionally, there is more diversity of species in the temperate rain forest here than in the tropical forest. The rain forest serves to store a remarkable genetic diversity.
The Quinault Rain Forest is a temperate rain forest, which is part of the Olympic National Park and the Olympic National Forest in the U.S. state of Washington in Grays Harbor County and Jefferson County. The rain forest is located in the valley formed by the Quinault River and Lake Quinault. The valley is called the "Valley of the Rain Forest Giants" because of the number of record size tree species located there. The largest specimens of Western Red Cedar, Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Alaskan Cedar and Mountain Hemlock are found in the forest as well as five of the ten largest Douglas-firs. The forest receives an average of 12 feet of rain per year. It is believed to be the area with the greatest number of record size giant tree species in the smallest area in the world. It does have the largest trees in the world outside of the state of California and New Zealand.
