Sitka spruce

Sitka spruce and Doug fir were the primary trees in the part of the Quinault forest we hiked through. Other trees were Western red cedar, Pacific silver fir and Western hemlock.

You can tell Sitka spruce by the sharp needles that point in all directions from the twigs. The cones hang downwards and are straw colored. They can grow 200 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Usually when they get large they shed their lower branches.

The rain forest gets an average of 140 inches of rain per year. Sitka spruce needs a lot of moisture, even in the rain forest it only grows in the moistest places.

I drove past two sites, many miles apart, that claimed to have the world’s largest Sitka spruce.

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