Reviews for Olympic National Park: A Natural History Guide

The average rating for Olympic National Park: A Natural History Guide based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-11-12 00:00:00 Peter Jones A beautiful and comprehensive look at the natural history of the area encompassed by the Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest and adjoining native lands. Beginning with overall geology of the region and the curious nature of the rocks within the park the narrative soon expands to the alpine glaciers and how the region was shaped by ice. Discussion of biotic communities begins with the alpine and sub-alpine zones branching down into montane and then lowland forests, from there you venture to the rivers and lakes and finally to the rich coastal ecosystems. Each ecotone is generally granted a brief overview combining prose and biological highlights, followed by one or more subsections spotlighting particularly emblematic members of that ecosystem. The final chapter of the book explores human impacts on the area, exploring early archaeological finds, use patterns by various peninsular tribes, and finally the long battle to protect park lands from resource-extraction. It is a very readable volume, straying only occasionally into the realm of scientific jargon, although if you bore easily I might recommend skipping the section on geology. There is a center section of color photographs, but the bulk of the text is largely just that, sprinkled with occasional black and white photos for flavor. The beautiful language certainly made me wish I lived closer and could see more of the park in all it's glorious seasons.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-04-20 00:00:00 Scott Murray This is not a travel book for your first visit to the park. That is the mistake that I made. I felt constantly frustrated with this book while reading it during my trip to the park. There are very few pictures and I was constantly confused as to what he was talking about. There is also an extensive geologic and botanical vocabulary necessary to even understand a lot of it. Being in the park, I had no service and couldn't google for further explanation. I also found the layout of the book frustrating in how the chapters were divided. I would have preferred a chapter about an area and then learned about the animal and plant life, and human history for each part of the park. These were all broad separate chapters. The language was also superfluous in its descriptions, and I was not surprised to read that the author is a poet. I still learned about the park, the book is quite thorough in that aspect.